Kerala fixes Rs 86,500-mn annual plan for 2009-10

Thiruvananthapuram: The size of the annual Plan of Kerala for 2009-10 has been fixed at Rs 8,650 crore, which is 12.34 per cent higher than the current year’s Plan size of Rs 7,700 crore.

The size may go up a little if the one-time additional Central assistance, which will be decided after discussions with the Planning Commission, exceeds the now assumed figure of Rs 100 crore, according to the Chief Minister, Mr V.S. Achuthanandan.

The total outlay for local self-government institutions is Rs 2,085 crore. The institutions have decided, among other things, to launch a massive housing programme, ‘EMS Housing Scheme’, for the population below the poverty line.

The Chief Minister said after a meeting of the State Planning Board here on Saturday that the plan size should have been still larger in the context of the global economic crisis, which would have an adverse impact on the State’s economy during 2009-10.

The crisis is expected to affect the revenue growth of the State. However, the plan size has been restricted as the State’s borrowing limit is outside its control.

The Chief Minister said that given the tempo of Plan outlay that had been maintained since 2007-08, the State’s Eleventh Plan target of Rs 40,422 crore at current prices would be exceeded in terms of budgetary provisions.

Mr Prabhat Patnaik, Vice-Chairman of the Planning Board, said that the annual plan for 2009-10 had made appropriate provisions for the large projects that the Government had launched of late. Even so, the thrust of the Plan is towards ameliorating the impact of the economic crisis on the common people like the workers, peasants and petty producers.

One of the important aspects of the thrust is the shift towards foodgrain and livestock production and this is contrary to the State’s development strategy over the last several years, which has been heavily in favour of cash crops. The strategy had made the State vulnerable to crashes in commodity prices in the world market and to the Centre’s caprices in the matter of making adequate foodgrains available to it, he said.

The Finance Minister, Dr Thomas Isaac, said that the annual plan provided for a substantial increase in outlays for traditional industries like coir, handlooms and cashew, which had been hit by the economic crisis.

The outlays will finance an array of anti-crisis measures, from technological upgradation, to price support, to the exploration and creation of new markets in lieu of the shrinking export markets.

The Plan also proposes to set up a relief fund of Rs 20 crore to provide price support to the marginal farmers in ‘distress crops’ like coffee and spices and to set up a Debt Relief Commission for indebted fisherfolk.