The Planning Commission on Wednesday cleared the draft of the 11th Plan (2007-12) that seeks to step up economic growth rate to 9 per cent, for which resources have been sought from increased budgetary support and stepping up of investments.

The draft document, which seeks to make growth more inclusive by significantly increasing the outlay for the priority sector programmes, will now be placed before to the Union Cabinet for vetting.

The National Development Council (NDC) will finally approve the Plan at its meeting on December 9 to raise the average economic growth rate to 9 per cent from 7.6 per cent recorded during the 10th Plan.

The Gross Budgetary Support (GBS), which is the centre's support to the Plan, has been fixed at Rs 14,21,711 crore (Rs 14.21 trillion), up from Rs 8,10,400 crore (Rs 8.10 trillion) in the previous Plan.

In order to make the growth more inclusive, the 11th Plan proposes to increase the agriculture sector growth rate to 4 per cent from 2.13 per cent in the 10th Plan.

The growth targets for industry and services sector have been pegged at 9-11 per cent. The industrial growth rate in the 10th Plan was 8.74 per cent, while the services sector grew by 9.28 per cent.

In order to meet the funding requirement of the ambitious Plan, the draft document has envisaged a savings rate of 34.8 per cent, which is substantially higher than 30.8 per cent recorded in the 10th Plan.

The investment rate, which is crucial to the success of the Plan, is proposed to be raised to 36.7 per cent from 30.8 per cent in the previous plan.

Some of the important targets of the 11th Plan include reducing poverty by 10 percentage points, generating 7 crore (70 million) new employment opportunities and ensuring electricity connection to all villages.

The major thrust of the Plan will be on social sector, including agriculture and rural development, with the draft document proposing to increase the priority sector allocation to 74.67 per cent of the centre's GBS from 55.20 per cent in the 10th Plan.

The biggest gainer, however, will be education sector with the draft proposing to increase the allocation to 19.36 per cent of the GBS from 7.68 per cent in the previous Plan.

In absolute terms, the central government will be spending Rs 2,75,000 crore (Rs 2.75 trillion) on education during the 11th Plan as compared to Rs 62,238 crore (Rs 622.38 billion) in the previous Plan.

The government has already drawn an extensive plan to improve primary, secondary and higher education during the 11th Plan which includes setting up of new IITs, IIMs and colleges.

The Plan also proposes to raise investment on infrastructure sector including irrigation, drinking water and sewage from 5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2005-06 to 9 per cent by 2011-12.

The non-priority sector, however, will receive the same amount from the central government as was allocated to it in the 10th Plan and would have to fend for itself.

The allocation towards the non-priority sector has been reduced to 25.33 per cent of the GBS from 44.80 per cent in the 10th Plan.