The Planning Commission has approved an annual plan outlay of Rs. 49,000 crore for Maharashtra for the financial year 2013-14.
In addition the PSE plan has been fixed at Rs. 31.500 crore. The aggregate plan thus is Rs 80,500 crore.
The plan size was finalized in a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan here last evening.
In his comments on the plan performance of the State, Ahluwalia said State has been performing fairly well.
He said appreciable effort has been made to reduce poverty and maintaining growth high and inclusive. Development of physical and social infrastructure has been given right priority. The poverty ratio has registered a decline of 13.7 percent point to 24.5 percent in Maharashtra in the year 2009-10 over 2004-05.
While appreciating achievement, it was suggested that more efforts are required to reduce head-count ratio of consumption poverty by 10 percentage points by the end of twelfth Five Year Plan.
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Complementing the State for financial management including fiscal deficit, he said despite global slowdown the State has achieved an average GSDP growth rate of 8.6 percentage against the target of 9.1 percent during 11th Five Year Plan.
"The per capita NSDP of Maharashtra in 2011-12 was Rs. 64,951 which is above the per capita NSDP of Haryana (Rs. 62,825) and Tamil Nadu (Rs. 54,550).Maharashtra has achieved a growth rate of 8.1 percent in Industry sector during 11th Five Year Plan against the target of 8.0 percent and it was higher than the growth rate achieved for the whole country (7.2 per cent)," he added.
The State Government was advised to encourage and motivate the entrepreneurs in MSME sector to avail the benefit of Central Sector Schemes.
Briefing the Commission on plan performance and development strategy for the 12th plan, Chavan said that drought proofing, balanced industrial growth along with infrastructure development would be given priority. Social sector would continue to get priority and investment from private sector would be encouraged.
Chavan drew attention of the Planning Commission to water crisis and said the state needs support from central Government in tackling the situation.
He said Maharashtra is facing a second successive year of drought due to very scanty rainfall. More than 10,000 villages in 15 districts of Maharashtra are affected by drought and are facing acute scarcity of water and fodder. Extensive measures to overcome this unprecedented crisis have been taken. Around Rs. 500crore have already been spent for tackling water scarcity.
He said the State Government has as part of decentralised planning decided to reserve 50 per cent of elected seats in the District Planning Committees for woman and to strengthen the district level plan, the State has proposed an allocation of Rs.5,200 crore in the District Plan.