Question

Essay type Or Write in detail.
Write in detail the 10th Five Year Plan of India.

Answer 1

Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07) of India! The National Development Council (NDC), headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, approved unanimously in December 2002 the Tenth Five-year Plan, envisaging an 8 percent annual GDP growth.It traces the development of key sectors and spells out strategies of the plan. The main objectives of the Tenth Five-Year Plan: Attain 8% GDP growth per year. Reduction of poverty rate by 5% by 2007. Providing gainful and high-quality employment at least to the addition to the labour force.

Emphasis to be placed on completion of partially completed or on-going projects and upgradation of existing capital assets before starting new projects
• Rapid privatisation of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs), particularly those, which are working well below capacity
• The policy of disinvestment of public sector undertakings should be pursued so as to enable the realisation of Rs 16,000 crore per annum to finance the plan
• Progressive reduction in fertiliser subsidy as well as elimination of petroleum subsidy
• Food subsidy should be better targeted through targeted public distribution system and specific programmes for the poor like Food for Work Programme
• Curtailment of pay and allowance bill of the Government
• All children in school by 2003; all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007
• Reduction in gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by at least 50 per cent by 2007
• Reduction in the decadal rate of population growth between 2001 and 2011 to 16.2 per cent
• Increase in literacy rates to 75 per cent within the Plan period
• Increase in forest and tree cover t 25 per cent by 2007 and 33 per cent by 2012
• All villages to have sustained access to potable drinking water within the Plan period
• Legal and procedural changes for facilitating quick transfer of assets, including such measures as repeal of Sick Industrial Companies (SPecial Provision) Act (SICA), introduction of a bankruptcy law, facilitating foreclosure, accelerating judicial processes
• Lower tariffs on imports to remove anti-export bias
• Rationalisation of the domestic tax structure, and the consequent simplification of the export promotion regime
• Evolve a positive agenda for its future negotiations at the WTO
• Improving tax/GDP ratio of the Centre and states through inclusion of services in tax base, removal of tax exemptions and concessions, harmonisation of tax rates, tightening of tax administration, and adopting an integrated VAT regime
• Reduction of budget-based subsidies by raising user charges of departmental services, reducing expenditure by cutting administrative and establishment cost and privatisation and through Centre''s initiative switching over to ad valorem rates of royalty on minerals
• Reducing staff strength through adoption of policy of net attrition and constituting a pension and amortisation fund to make committed payments like terminal benefits and debt servicing, self-financing
• Enacting a ''Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management'' bill under which borrowings shall be restricted to attain a non-rising debt to GDP ratio from current levels in order to reduce the burden of interest payments
• Improving internal resources of states'' PSUs by implementing power sector reforms and reducing the burden of contingent liabilities on state budgets through a legislative or administrative ceiling on the issue of state guarantees
• Simplifying laws and procedures for investment
• Eliminating inter-state barriers to trade and commerce
• Reforming development financial institutions for long- term financing of small and medium enterprises
• Removal of government and Reserve Bank of India restrictions on financing of stocking and trading
• Calibration of the cost of borrowed funds for enhancing competitiveness
• Essential Commodities Act should be repealed and replaced by an emergency act
• Encouraging Foreign Direct Investment so as to achieve the annual target of 7.5 billion dollars
• Exemptions under corporate tax should be progressively eliminated
• Single excise rate
• Expansion of service tax net
• Alignment should be made of customs tariff rates with average Asian rates
• Exemptions and concessions that distort the tariff structure should be eliminated
• Improvement of the operational efficiency of railways and power sector units
• Reduction in staff strength and constitution of a pension and amortisation fund to make committed payments like terminal benefits and debt servicing self-financing
• User charges must be raised to cost-recover levels
• Project based assistance needs to be encouraged
• Rationalisation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) and Central Sector Schemes (CSs) using zero based budgeting
• Railway Tariff Regulatory Authority needed to oversee the pricing of passenger and freight traffic services
• Opening of civil aviation sector and setting up a regulatory framework for the sector
• Adoption of integrated approach to improvement in agriculture sector by utilising waste and degraded lands