The sectors identified by the national common minimum programme as thrust areas for boosting economic growth and investments will now get only Rs 3,582.2 crore (Rs 35.82 billion) in the remaining two years of the Tenth Plan as against the original allocation of Rs 4,081.5 crore (Rs 40.81 billion).
The mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Plan has reduced the public investments by 19 per cent to Rs 981.1 crore (Rs 9.81 billion) from Rs 1,209.3 crore (Rs 12.09 billion).
"Public investment has fallen seriously short of targets in the first two years of the Plan, especially in agriculture, manufacturing, electricity, and public administration, community, social and personal services, and it appears unlikely that these backlogs can be made up in the remaining three years," the MTA said justifying its reduction.
The MTA would be placed before the national development council for approval at its meeting scheduled for June 27-28.
It said that investments in manufacturing and power sectors were low, mainly due to the inability of PSUs concerned to generate requisite amount from internal resources, while in other areas it was the lack of sufficient budgetary resources.
However, investments in two infrastructure sectors -- mining and quarrying and communications -- "have been, and are expected to be nearly as high or even higher than originally targeted". This would be due to an increase in internal resource generation by the concerned CPSUs.
The MTA, however, pointed out that within mining and quarrying, investments in the non-hydrocarbon sub-sectors has been much below target.
The Tenth Plan public investment figures for agriculture sector was Rs 132.3 crore (Rs 1.32 billion), which has been significantly brought down to Rs 95.7 crore (Rs 957 million) by the MTA.
In the manufacturing sector, one of the major thrust areas of the UPA government, the MTA has pegged public investments at a meagre 71.3 crore (Rs 713 million) from Rs 97.2 crore (Rs 972 million).
The total investments in the sector would be around 1,196.6 crore (Rs 11.96 billion) from the Tenth Plan figure of Rs 1,476.9 crore (Rs 14.76 billion)
Investments in electricity, gas and water supply has almost been halved to Rs 174.5 crore from the Tenth Plan level of Rs 251.6 crore (Rs 2.51 billion).
Even in the rail transport sector public investments has been slashed to Rs 52.1 crore from 60.6 crore for the remaining two years of the Tenth Plan.
Public investments in other transport sectors has also been reduced to Rs 70.7 crore (Rs 707 million) from the Tenth Plan estimates of Rs 80.7 crore (Rs 807 million).
Communications is the only sector, in which the MTA has increased its public investments to Rs 119.9 crore (Rs 1.19 billion) from the plan estimates of Rs 91 crore with the total investments also being almost doubled at Rs 431.4 crore (Rs 4.31 billion) from Rs 296.4 crore (Rs 2.96 billion).
The MTA has also cut the public investments for the public administration and related sectors to Rs 110.4 crore (Rs 1.10 billion) from Rs 156.3 crore (Rs 1.56 billion).
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