State gets high praise from Planning Commission on exceptional performance

NEW DELHI, July 11: As projected by the State Government, the Planning Commission has approved the Annual Plan Size 2012-13 for Arunachal Pradesh at Rs 3,535.00 crores. This was finalized at the meeting held between Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh  Nabam Tuki at the Planning Commission on Wednesday. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Planning  Ashwani Kumar and other members of the Planning Commission.

The Chief Minister was accompanied by Minister (Planning and Finance) Chowna Mein, Minister (Agriculture / Horticulture) Setong Sena, Minister (Power)  Tanga Bayaling, Minister (Education)  Bosiram Siram, Parliamentary Secretary Planning  Nabam Rebia, Deputy Chairman SPB  Takar Marde and Principal Advisor to CM  T Norbu.

While outlining his vision for the State, Tuki made a passionate appeal to the Commission to understand the special needs and requirements of the State and provide liberal support as always. The Planning Minister Chowna Mein also highlighted the most important thrust areas for the State for the 12th Five year Plan and how State is planning to incorporate these in a well thought of five year plan document.

A team of officers comprising Principal Secretary to CM  Y Tsering, Development Commissioner  Ramesh Negi, Secretary Planning  Ankur Garg and Secretary Tourism  Sonam Chombay under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary  H K Paliwal also comprised the delegation. A power point presentation, highlighting the performance of the State and its thrust areas and performance of flagship schemes was made by Paliwal, Negi and Garg.

Ahluwalia and all the members of the Planning Commission showered high praise on the State for its exceptional performance in third party monitoring and agriculture and horticulture sectors. The Commission also expressed immense satisfaction on the performance of PM Package Projects in the State and said that Arunachal model of monitoring should be replicated all over the country for promoting complete transparency.

It is noteworthy that the approved Plan size is almost 20.1 per cent increase over last year’s revised outlay of Rs 2942.6 crores. The increase has been made possible as the State has shown an average annual growth rate of 10.8 per ecnt during the first 4 years of the 11th five Year Plan compared to the national average growth rate of 8.15 per cent. In particular, the agriculture sector has recorded an average growth rate of more than 14 per cent and the horticulture sector, almost 200 per cent.

The actual expenditure during the 11th Five year Plan was 137 per cent of the initially agreed outlay – a fact which was given due appreciation by the Deputy Chairman during the meeting.

The resources will help the State in bridging critical gaps in infrastructure and also help realise its vision of skill development, capacity building and generating employment for 1 lakhs youth during the 12th Five year Plan. This was stated in a press release