Front Page   

PM, Advani push gets Cabinet nod for Tenth Plan

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI OCT. 29. The Union Cabinet today approved the Tenth Five-Year Plan with an "ambitious" growth target of eight per cent per annum for the years 2002 to 2007, but only after "adjustments" on controversial issues. There was a last-minute attempt to postpone the approval, but it was put down strongly by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani. At the same time, the controversial public sector disinvestment issue was played down considerably in the presentation made to the Cabinet.

The Tenth Plan, which advocates a strong dose of public sector disinvestment and a high target for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), became a matter of some controversy in the light of the strong line against disinvestment adopted by a few Cabinet Ministers. While the full Planning Commission meeting, which cleared the Plan earlier this month, had only the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, as participants — apart from the Prime Minister and the Commission members — the Cabinet meeting today included the presence of some of the "dissenting" Ministers.

According to reports, the Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, today suggested the postponement of a decision "since not everybody had has a chance to go through the bulky documents". At this, Mr. Singh is understood to have said that a meeting for the approval of the Plan had already been postponed once (Monday, last week) and a second postponement would "send out negative signals".

Mr Singh's stand was supported by Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani. Even the Defence Minister, George Fernandes — who had earlier gone public opposing disinvestment of the oil sector companies — said a decision was necessary today.

Once the "big four" took that position, most of the expected dissenting voices clamped up and the discussion proceeded on "normal' lines, with some Ministers seeking higher allocations for their charge while others wanted greater emphasis for certain sectors such as housing for the poor and generation of employment opportunities.

But the Planning Commission also took note of the "sensibilities" of those opposing disinvestment. While the Plan projects a disinvestment revenue of about Rs. 16,000 crores annually — which would mean selling off the profitable public sector units — the official position adopted later was that the basic question was of mobilising revenue, whether through disinvestment or better tax collections. As such, disinvestment might not be that big an issue if the Finance Minister is able to mobilise resources from other sources was the official stance after the Cabinet meeting.

Consequently, the issue of mobilising resources through disinvestment was played down considerably since "it accounted for just two per cent of the total Plan size".

With this, the Cabinet gave its clearance for the Tenth, which will now be placed before the National Development Council for approval, possibly next month.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• PM, Advani push gets Cabinet nod for Tenth Plan
• Rajnath bid to bring round dissidents
• RBI cuts bank rate, CRR
• Amar Singh meets Arjun Singh
• No discrimination, says Mufti
• 15,393 cusecs released
• Centre to release DA
• NSS 1992 discontinued
• Emergency landing
• 4 shot dead in U.S. varsity

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu