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Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
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Meet reviews Plan achievements

Special Correspondent

Plan process showing signs of regaining its meaning: Chief Minister

V.S. Achuthanandan: much more needed to be done by various departments.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State’s Plan process is showing signs of regaining its meaning, according to Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan.

Addressing a meeting of Ministers and top officials here on Tuesday to review the Plan achievements so far this year, the Chief Minister said that the usual pattern of postponing development works till the fag end of the financial year was changing. This was a good sign, though much more needed to be done by various departments, he added.

“Not all departments have risen up to the expected levels of achievement,” he said. The Centrally sponsored schemes and foreign-funded projects were still lagging. The Plan achievement till July-end this financial year came to 12 per cent, against 9 per cent recorded for the same period last financial year. The figures might not indicate the real significance of the change. The State was witnessing a reversal of the usual trend of the last many years and that was great, Mr. Achuthanandan said.

Of the total Plan outlay of Rs.7,700 crore for 2008-09, the amount spent till July end came to Rs.938 crore. Government departments spent Rs.810 crore out of Rs.5,822 crore earmarked for them and local self-government institutions Rs.127 crore out of Rs.1,694 crore earmarked for them.The departments utilised 14 per cent of their allocations. Though the local self-government institutions spent only 7 per cent of theirs, it was still a big improvement upon the situation the same time last year, when only 1 per cent of the outlay was used.

Mr. Achuthanandan asked the Ministers and officials to be on their toes in implementing the Plan programmes. Last financial year, the achievement had come to only 73 per cent. It was another matter that the situation in 2006-07 was far worse than in 2007-08.

He said that the amount spent should not become the sole yardstick for measuring the success of the Plan.

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