Panel to take up states' plan

The Planning Commission is set to kick-start the process of finalising annual plans for states and Union Territories for 2006-07 on November 18.

Deputy chairman, Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia will begin the exercise with Uttar Pradesh. Some of the other states for which preliminary discussions are scheduled this month include Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Orissa, Delhi and Assam.

The Planning Commission had last year initiated the exercise to discuss and finalise state plans before the beginning of the next fiscal.

The tenth plan had set Rs 6,71,009 crore as the target for resources for state and union territory plans. The core plan resources were placed at Rs 5,90,948 crore. The unfunded gap of Rs 80,061 crore was to be met through Rs 38,553 crore of funding by state governments themselves and a central assistance of Rs 41,508 crore.

In a letter to all states last month, Ahluwalia had asked them to prepare their draft annual plans for 2006-07 assuming an increase of 10 per cent over the Central assistance provided in 2005-06. The Gross Budgetary support for the plan in 2005-06 was Rs 172,500 crore, 16.9 per cent higher than the previous year's.