Deshmukh wants M'rashtra's Plan outlay to double

Proposes to allocate Rs 25,000 crore for infrastructure projects.

While asking for doubling the state's Plan outlay from Rs 66,632 crore in the 10th Five Year Plan to Rs 1.27 lakh crore in 11th Plan, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has proposed to allocate Rs 25,000 crore for infrastructure projects, to be carried out under the public-private-partnership model (PPP).

The state has undertaken many infrastructure projects including road, bridges, metro railway, development of ports and airports under the PPP model and wants to take up many more projects under this model.

However, the state will be required to pay viability gap funding (VGF) for many projects, and make initial contribution or take up some of the projects from its own resources, he pointed out.

The chief minister was speaking at the National Development Council's (NDC) meet at Delhi on Wednesday.

Stressing the importance of why there was a need to improve infrastructure in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which includes parts of the neighbouring Thane and Raigad district, Deshmukh said, "While the rest of the state is likely to grow at around 10 per cent, we expect MMR to grow over 12 per cent, acting as a catalyst for the economic development of the rest of the state."

He also proposed to allocate Rs 30,000 crore for the irrigation sector, which is almost 25 per cent more than the 10th Five Year Plan.

"While targeting the growth of over 10 per cent, we aim to increase the growth of the agriculture sector from the present 2.9 per cent to 4.5 per cent. Besides, higher allocation to irrigation projects will help the state bring further 1.8 million hectares under irrigation.