Cabinet clears draft of 11th Plan

Sources said at Thursday8217;s Cabinet meet, some ministers wanted more resources and attention given to their ministries and schemes as bulk of the resources had gone towards education, health, agriculture.

It is learnt that areas of concern ranged from housing to child welfare. Some of the ministries such as housing were assured that while the plan document may show a lower allocation but over the entire Plan period, the Government will make higher allocations to these sectors if the need arises.

Another issue concerned the attention given to child development. On this, the assurance given was that these issues would be addressed in the modified Integrated Child Development Scheme ICDS.

With the Cabinet nod, the document would be circulated to chief ministers for the NDC meet on December 19. Once cleared by the NDC, the Plan would come into force from April 1.

It needs to be mentioned that as many as 27 detailed national targets have been set with an aim to implement them during the Plan period. In areas related to income and poverty, the target is to achieve an average 9 per cent GDP growth in each of the five years. Similarly, a 4 per cent growth is being targeted in the agriculture sector. The Government has set a target of generating 70 million new jobs along with bringing down unemployment among the educated segment to less than 5 per cent.

In the field of education, the 11th Plan target is to bring down dropout rates from elementary school from 52.2 per cent in 2003-04 to 20 per cent by 2011-12 as well as increasing literacy rate for people above 7 years of age to 85 per cent by 2011-12.

In the area of health, the target is to reduce infant mortality rate to 28 and maternal mortality rate to 1 per 1,000 live births by the end of the Plan. Under the targets for women and child development, the plan is to raise the sex-ratio for age group 0-6 to 935 by 2011-12.

The Cabinet also gave approval for tariff elimination and reduction on 555 products through a protocol of amendment of India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and also for offering to Singapore any subsequent improvement made at the time of ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement AIFTA in terms of product coverage timeline, Rules of Origin RoO with appropriate amendments to India-Singapore CECA. The tariff elimination/reduction will commence from December 1, 2007.

The Government said the tariff concessions would further enhance growth in bilateral trade with economic benefits to both countries.

As Singapore is a member country of ASEAN, betterment made in the ASEAN-India FTA over CECA may be incorporated in CECA to maximise gains to both countries.

8226; To move official amendments in the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2007 in the Lok Sabha. The Bill is aimed at enacting legislation to provide effective care and protection to senior citizens and provide speedy and inexpensive legal framework to grant maintenance to them.

8226; To place the National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy, 2005 on the table in Parliament 038; general circulation to State Governments/ UTs and other stakeholders for implementation.The policy put into effect by various stakeholders, will promote sustained development of urban housing and settlements, with a focus on social housing for EWS/LIG.

8226; To sign an agreement between India and Cambodia on foreign convicted prisoners to be transferred to their home countries and prisoners of Indian origin are brought to India to serve the remaining part of their sentence.

8226; To sign an extradition treaty between India and Egypt and for ratification thereof. The treaty is aimed at providing a legal framework for seeking extradition of terrorists, economic offenders, and other criminals from and to the Arab Republic of Egypt.