Puducherry Plan for 2012-13 Finalized

The Annual Plan for the year 2012-13 for Puducherry was finalized here today at a meeting between Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of Puducherry, Sh. N. Rangaswamy. The plan size has been agreed at Rs.3,000 crore.

In his comments on the performance of the Union Territory, Mr Ahluwalia said that the Union Territory has been achieving satisfactory progress and development strategy was in right track. He said good progress has been achieved in health and education sectors. The State needs to focus on finding new avenues of revenue generation to meet future demands. Tourism and infrastructure are the areas which need special attention of the Government. He said public private partnership in these sectors has to be encouraged and necessary steps should be taken to facilitate private partnership.

The Commission pointed out that the Union Territory need to develop a comprehensive plan for a faster, sustainable and inclusive growth. The plan should be customised to local needs and resources. It should create policy framework to increase private sector participation to overcome public sector resource constraint.

The administration government was congratulated for improvement in the literacy rates (overall, male & female, rural, & urban), gender gap in literacy rate, and regional gap in literacy rate which are better than their corresponding national averages. The literacy rate of 86.55% in Puducherry stands at 3rd position among 7 UTs. The gender gap in literacy rate in Puducherry (10.90%) is at place when compared with all States/UTs in the country.

The population density in Puducherry (2,598) stands at 3rd position in the country after NCT of Delhi (11,297), and Chandigarh (9,252). Given the high population density in the UT, the government of Puducherry should keep a check on decadal rate of population growth in the UT which has increased by 20.62 in 1991-2001 to 27.72% in 2001-11.

Attention was drawn to the decline of the shares of Agriculture & Industry sectors in the UTs GDP, whereas the share of Services sector has marginally increased. During all 5 years of the 11th Plan, the growth rate in the Industry sector had always been less than the target set for the 11th Plan.

Responding to the issues raised by the members of the Commission, Mr Rangaswamy said that a comprehensive master plan is being developed to promote Puducherry as a “Week long tourist destination and Manapet is been developed as special Tourism Zone. He said tourism was emerging as the largest industry for generating employment and powerful engine for economic growth.

He said the central Government should fully fund centrally sponsored programme in the State because of limited resources of the small size of the Union territory. He was also of the opinion that all flagship programme in the UT should be fully funded by the central Government.

NNK/MD