To discuss global crisis, PM to meet key ministers

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will discuss the ways to isolate India from the impact of global economic crisis. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 16, 2011, 23:16:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will discuss the ways to isolate India from the impact of global economic crisis. He is likely to meet the economic and social sector ministers this week even as the country's top advisory body, the Planning Commission, has suggested downgrade of economic growth rate for next five years from 9-9.5 % to 8.5-9 %.

“If we can touch 9% in the 12th plan (starting April next) it will be great,” said a top panel functionary, contending that the final call will be taken at Planning Commission meeting on August 20. “It will be higher than 8.1% GDP growth we will achieve in the 11th plan.”

This April, PM Singh had approved a target range of GDP growth of 9-9.5 %. In the intervening three months a lot has changed. Plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia admitted that the crisis will impact India's projected growth trajectory but said “the country's fiscal position was sound to sustain high growth rate”.

The concerns has prompted the PM to seek comments from finance and commerce and social sector ministries such as rural development and HRD on steps to be taken to minimise the impact.

The plan panel believes that slowing down of the growth rate will crunch availability of resources for the social sector in the 12th plan as the government was committed to maintain fiscal deficit at reasonable level.

“Availability of plan funds may not be high as we are looking at an annual increase of just 1.3% of the GDP in the 12th plan,” an official said. PM Singh, however, said there will be no constraints of funds for health and education sectors in the 12th plan, which will also seek renewed effort for infrastructure development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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