Eleventh Plan had some notable achievements-India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has lauded the achievements of his government during the 11th Five-Year Plan period. Addressing a full meeting of the Planning Commission here, Singh said: "We ended the Eleventh Plan with some notable achievements. The economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.9 percent. This is commendable for a period which saw two global crises - one in 2008 and another in 2011." He also said that during the 11th plan poverty declined twice as fast between 2004-05 to 2009-10 than it did in the previous 10 years. Dr. Singh said that agriculture grew at 3.3 percent per year in the Eleventh Plan, much faster than the 2.4 percent observed in the Tenth Plan. These are positive features, and added that , however, we must also recognise that the Twelfth Plan is starting in a year when the world economy is experiencing difficulties and our economy has also slowed down. "These short term problems present a challenge, but they should not lead to undue pessimism about our medium term prospects," he said. Asserting that the economy has gained much strength, Dr. Singh said our immediate priority must be to orchestrate a rebound in the second half of the current year. "We should then try to accelerate growth to reach around 9 percent by the end of the Plan period. This will yield a target growth rate of around 8.2 percent over the Twelfth Plan. This is lower than the 9 percent originally projected, but some downward revision is realistic given the state of the world," he added. He further said that the most important area for immediate action is to speed up the pace of implementation of infrastructure projects. "This is critical for removing supply bottlenecks which constrain growth in other sectors. It will also boost investor sentiment to raise the overall rate of investment," he said. "The infrastructure ministries must set ambitious goals for their sectors over the Twelfth Plan. We need close to a trillion dollars of investment in infrastructure and we have to work hard to achieve this," he added.

11th Plan growth was commendable, says PM