Plan budget to see 18 % hike

India’s plan allocation will see an overall increase of 18 % in the 2011-12 Budget, the UPA-II government has decided. It would mean the Planning Commission will have Rs 4,41,000 crore at its disposal as compared to Rs 3,73,000 crore in the current financial year.

Updated on: Feb 3, 2011, 24:55:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India’s plan allocation will see an overall increase of 18 % in the 2011-12 Budget, the UPA-II government has decided. It would mean the Planning Commission will have Rs 4,41,000 crore at its disposal as compared to Rs 3,73,000 crore in the current financial year.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took the decision this week after the finance ministry showed its unwillingness for more than 13% increase in the gross budgetary support (GBS), as plan budget is called in official jargon.

The Planning Commission had asked for 20% increase in allocation considering that in the 2010-11 Budget, the increase in GBS was 18%. The finance ministry had cited financial constraints in meeting the demand as it had already allocated R30,000 crore to the states to manage their fiscal position.

According to plan panel sources, the PM was of the view that if the hike in GBS was not comparable with the current financial year, it will send a wrong message to people. “High economic growth should result in more spending on social sector schemes,” an official, not willing to be quoted, said.

A shortfall of 42% to meet 11th Plan target also weighted in favour of the idea. Although the Centre could not have provided such an increase in the last financial year of the plan, the PM was reportedly of the view that more money should be provided for social sector schemes in the budget.

While any new schemes are unlikely to be announced, the panel is expected to hike allocation for health, education and women and child development by over 25 %. The rural development, excluding National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, can get increase in allocation of up to 20 %. Although the sector wise allocations are yet to be finalized, the plan panel officials said the focus would continue to be on social sector and skill development. “Giving more than 10 % increase to railways will not be possible,” an official said.

But railways, which is hit by financial constraints, might get substantial increase if the ministry agrees to revise
passenger tariff.

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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