PM’s address at the 55th National Development Council meeting

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, addressed the 55th National Development Council meeting in New Delhi today. Following is the text of the Prime Minister's address on the occasion:

''Three years of the Eleventh Plan are over. It is time to look back on what we have achieved, identify areas where performance falls short and take corrective steps where needed.

The Eleventh Plan objective was to achieve inclusive growth at an annual rate of 9 per cent. As the Deputy Chairman has pointed out in his opening remarks, we have done well on growth despite the effects of the global economic crisis and the severe drought of 2009. The Mid Term Apprisal projects that the Eleventh Plan will achieve an annual average growth rate of 8.1 per cent per year. This is lower than the target of 9 per cent, but is still the highest ever achieved in any Plan period.

Our objective was not just growth, but inclusive growth. This means a growth which would bring tangible benefits to the weaker sections, the SC/ST, minorities and other excluded groups. To measure progress on inclusiveness the Plan had identified a total of 27 monitorable indicators.

The data to measure progress on many of these indicators will become available only after some time. For example, the only data available on poverty is for 2004-05. The next estimate will be from the 2009-10 survey, which is now in the field, and will become available in about two years time.

However, some assessment of our success in achieving inclusiveness is possible using other measures. One aspect of inclusiveness is the growth performance of individual States. The Mid-Term Appraisal (MTA) shows that all States have shown significant acceleration in economic growth in recent years, including those which had earlier tended to lag behind. This is a matter of some discussion.