12th Plan appraisal before Governing Council next month: NITI

NITI Aayog is likely to table the mid-term appraisal of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), its last such policy document, before its Governing Council headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi next month.

“I would expect a Governing Council meeting next month where we can present the mid-term appraisal of the 12th Five Year Plan,” NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya said.

He said the review indicates that the state of economy has improved in the third and fourth years of the 12th Plan, that is 2014-15 and 2015-16, and it will move to a high growth trajectory from this fiscal.

Besides doing away with the practice of having five-year plan documents, the government will do away with plan and non-plan expenditure from next fiscal.

The appraisal by Aayog broadly covers the period of first four financial years out the five year plan period (2012-17), though it covers budget estimates of the final financial year (2016-17) also.

Breaking away from the past traditions, the appraisal is based on nine broad themes—an overview of economy and policy, macroeconomic factors, governance, human resource development, physical infrastructure, environment sustainability, agriculture and rural transformation and urban transformation.

The review stresses on creating conditions for sustained rapid growth that is also employment-friendly and designing and implementing social programmes to address different dimensions of poverty by using the expanding revenue made possible by growth.

However, the growth rate in agriculture sector fell to 1.6 per cent during the first four years of the 12th Plan.Panagariya said that the Aayog has already started interactions to prepare three documents for the periods starting next fiscal --- a 15-year Vision, 7-year Strategy and 3-year Action Plan.

He said that the Aayog has already interacted with agriculturists and scientists on the these policy documents and there would be more consultations with stakeholders like ministries, states and other sector representatives.

“We will see expected growth in implied tax and non-tax revenue and how these can be deployed,” he said.He also said that the Aayog would be ready with the draft of these policy documents before the next Budget is presented in the Parliament.

Asked in a lighter vein whether the Aayog is a toothless tiger, he said, “We are not toothless. We have a lot of say.  We have a lot of influence on Central government policies.”