The 1,800 page final draft of the Tenth Five Year Plan, split into three volumes, will be tabled for discussion at the meeting of the full Planning Commission tomorrow.
The meeting, which will be attended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, finance minister Jaswant Singh and external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, besides Planning Commission deputy chairman, KC Pant and the Plan body members, will hold an exhaustive discussion on the Plan.
After this, the draft will go to the Cabinet and the National Development Council.
Keeping in mind the focus on implementation and monitoring, the meeting is expected to discuss the setting up of inter-ministerial groups to track social and economic indicators.
The format of the Plan will, however, be quite different from what was originally visualised.
While the original proposal was to have a four-volume Plan instead of the usual two, the final draft is down to three volumes.
Volume 1 of the plan, dealing with policy prescriptions for the government, and Volume 2, dealing with the macro aspects of the Plan, have been clubbed together.
Two chapters dealing with the general objectives of the Plan and policy initiatives have been introduced in the original Volume 2.
The old Volume 3, dealing with sectoral issues, remains by and large as was intended.
This is the bulkiest volume, comprising around 1,200 pages, and is expected to be split into four sub volumes -- 2a to 2d -- in the subsequent stages.
The old volume 4 on states -- now volume 3 -- will have state-wise and district-wise targets for various indicators with provisions for periodic review.
This volume has been introduced for the first time, with a view to combating growing regional inequality in the country.
With the volume on policy prescriptions being dropped, the plan to outsource some sections of the Plan, has not come through.
"Inputs were collected, but they were fairly disjointed and could not be woven cohesively into a separate section, so the idea to have a separate volume on policy and direction was dropped at the last minute," Commission officials said.
The volume was to have chapters on industry, power, agriculture, the fiscal situation, foreign investment and balance of payments.
Some segments have been included in the new Volume 1, but by an large, the plan to outsource some sections of the Plan to bring in a fresh approach and new thinking in the Planning process has fallen through.
