Approach Paper For The Eleventh Plan Positive

The suggestions made in the Approach paper for the Eleventh Plan could help India attract more foreign investors and help improve infrastructure and delays in getting work done if implemented seriously.

More industries could be freed of shackles if the suggestions in the approach paper for the Eleventh Plan are taken seriously. At the same time, it says inverted duty structures must be gradually eliminated. "Taxes and duties should be made non-distortionary and internationally competitive," it says.

The paper also lobs the ball in the state governments' court, asking them to work to ending delays in land registration, water and power connections, environmental and other clearances.

Even as it insists that the infrastructure constraints must be "substantially rectified" within the next five to ten years, it also emphasizes that efforts to promote general infrastructure should be supplemented by steps to do the same in special economic zones (SEZs) and special economic regions (SERs).

Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia had said that policy impediments have made it more difficult for India to do well in manufacturing. Many of the suggestions in the approach paper have been made earlier as well but not implemented the way they should have been done.

Within the overall industrial growth 9.9%, the paper, officials explained, targets a 14% growth in construction and 8.5% in electricity.