Faster and sustainable growth objective of 12th FYP: Manmohan Singh

New Delhi, Apr 21 (ANI): The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on Thursday said that the objective of 12th Five Year Plan beginning 2012 must be faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth.

"There is need to identify the critical areas where existing policies and programmes are not delivering results and therefore they must be strengthened or restructured. We also need to consider what new challenges have emerged which call for altogether new initiatives," Dr Singh at the Full Planning Commission Meeting here.

"The Twelfth Plan must build on what we have achieved and indeed do better in the next five years. The objective must be faster, more inclusive and also sustainable growth. For this we need to define new targets for the Twelfth Plan," he added.

Asking the Commission to examine challenges relating to energy, water and urbanisation which are likely to become more severe, he said: "A critical issue in any plan is the availability of resources and asked the Planning Commission and Finance Ministry to work in close cooperation on the resources for the 12th Plan, consistent with the objective of ensuring fiscal viability."

"However, we do know that resources will be a constraint. This underlines the need to focus more on efficiency of resource use, and also supplement public resources with private investment, wherever feasible," he added.

Dr. Singh, however ,said that in a scenario of resource constraint, focus must be on efficiency of resource utilisation as well as supplementing public resources with private investment.

He also urged the Commission to prepare estimates of poverty based on the latest data and make them available for public discussion as soon as possible.

Dr. Singh said, despite severe drought and global economic slow down, the 11th Plan will end with 8.2 per cent GDP growth which is short of 9 per cent target but nevertheless a commendable achievement.

"We have also made important progress towards our goal of greater inclusiveness. Enrollment rates have increased, drop out rates have fallen, gender gaps are being reduced. Infant mortality rates have fallen. It is true that progress in this area has been less than we had targeted and we must ensure that we do much better in future," he added. (ANI)