Plan panel for lowering growth target in 12th Plan to 8%

The Planning Commission will pitch for lowering the average annual growth rate for the 12th Five Year Plan to 8 per cent, from 8.2 per cent at the meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) in New Delhi on Thursday.

"Our objective is that we should be going in for a more optimistic scenario ... And probably if we reflect, what we now know (is that) instead of 8.2 per cent, it would be better to pitch it at 8 per cent.

"I would raise that issue in the NDC," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.

This lowering of growth target, he added, follows changes in the global and domestic economy since the approval of the Approach Paper by the NDC in October last year.

This is the second time that the Planning Commission will be scaling down the growth projection for the 12th Plan (2012-17).

After initially estimating the growth rate at 9 per cent in its Approach Paper, it lowered the target to 8.2 per cent in September 2012

in view of global economic worries and persistent sluggishness in domestic growth.

The issue will be considered tomorrow by the country's highest policymaking body NDC, which is headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and comprises Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers of all states.

In the 11th Five Year Plan, the average annual growth rate was 7.9 per cent.

For the current fiscal, which would be the first year of the 12th Plan, the growth rate has been estimated at 5.7-5.9 per cent, which would be the lowest in the last decade.