Full plan panel meeting on September 9

NEW DELHI: The Planning Commission will have to do a tightrope walk in allocation of the additional Rs 10,000 crore for various social sector porjects with various ministries and partners in ruling coalition making conflicting demands for a total of Rs 33,000 crore.

The full Planning Commission under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to meet on September nine to finalise the allocation of Rs 10,000 crore of additional gross budgetary support (GBS) provided for the social sectors in the Budget.

The meeting will also take stock of the economic development during the Tenth Plan and review whether the government could achieve the targeted eight per cent average annual growth during the Tenth Plan (2002-07).

There are indications that the eight per cent growth could be scaled down marginally to 7-8 per cent in the face of average annual growth of about six per cent in the first two years of the Plan, despite a robust 8.1 per cent recorded in 2003-04 on the back of good monsoon.

The meeting will take a mid-term review of the plan projects and discuss in detail the financial condition of states, many of which are in poor health.

The transfer of Centrally Sponsored Schemes to states as proposed in the Budget will also figure prominently during the meeting.