New Delhi, Jan 24: After a gap of five years, the Planning Commission has decided to resume the practice of fixing state plan sizes before the start of the financial year. In sharp contrast to the current fiscal, where the exercise got stretched till January, the Planning Commission will start holding annual plan meetings with states for the coming fiscal from early next month.Planning Commission deputy chairman KC Pant will hold the first meeting with the chief minister and other government officials of Arunachal Pradesh on February 5. This will be followed by meetings with representatives from Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya.
According to sources, the schedule for meetings with the rest of the states will be finalised shortly. Planning Commission officials told The Financial Express, "When a financial year starts without a Plan size in place, states have to start work on their own tentative budgets. "
Earlier, states gave their own projections of fund requirements and there was no way of checking it.
With the introduction of the core plan concept last year, a team from the Centre goes to various states and in discussion with officials from various departments, a realistic assessment of fund requirement is arrived at.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
