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10th Plan must address unemployment: Pant

Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission K C Pant on Saturday expressed confidence in India's potential to attain higher GDP grwoth rate, but said that the Tenth Plan must address the problem of rising unemployment which, if not resolved, could lead to social unrest in the country.

"The most pressing issue facing us today is the rapid growth in the labour force that we are likely to experience in over the next decade. At current rates of growth and with the current labour intensity in production, we face a possibility of rising unemployment which could lead to social unrest," he said at the full Planning Commission meeting in New Delhi.

Admitting that growth performance of the economy in the previous year had been below expectations and vagaries of the monsoon had led to a certain amount of diffidence, Pant said, "It is our firm belief that our country has the potential to effect a significant turn-around within a short span of time and to achieve improvements in our economic and social indicators which have never before been achieved."

"Efforts will have to be made to ensure that the growth momentum in the non-agricultural sectors that have been in evidence in the first quarter of this year is maintained," he said emphasising on the closer coordination between central ministries including finance ministry and Planning Commission.

Emphasising the need to address issues of poverty and unacceptably low levels of social indicators, Pant said: "Although these have been objectives in earlier plans, in the Tenth Plan we are working towards specific monitorable targets which will need to be attained along with the growth target."

Also since national targets do not necessarily translate into balanced regional development, the Tenth Plan has for the first time broken down the national targets to the state level in consultation with them, he said.

"A carefully crafted medium-term macro-economic policy stance, both for the Centre and the states is a feature of the Tenth Plan," he said, adding that this had been done taking into account the conduct of macro-economic policies and instruments in a market-oriented economy.

Referring to critics questioning the role of planning, he said, "even today when the economy has moved substantially in the direction of greater market orientation, the country looks to the planning system to provide direction for the way forward."

"Planning has been one of the pillars of our approach to economic development and growth since independence and has stood us in good stead. Our collective faith and belief in the institution of planning has never faltered," he said.

Saturday's full Planning Commission meeting has been called to approve the draft Tenth Plan document which has set an 8 per cent GDP growth target for the five-year period.

In addition to the members of the Planning Commission, the meeting was attended by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha.

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