National 5 (Spotlight Weekly)

Pruning Poverty

The National Planning Commission (NPC) approves the final document of the Tenth Plan, which lays greater emphasis on poverty alleviation

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

The meeting of the apex planning body NPC headed by Prime minister and chairman of NPC Lokendra Bahadur Chand approved the final document of the Tenth Plan on December 17. The tenth plan (2002-2007) marks the continuity in the planned development of the country that started in the early 50s.

Not surprisingly, the tenth plan also lays greater emphasis on the poverty alleviation. The tenth plan has aimed at bringing down the poverty level below the 30 percent of the total population in the next five years.

The NPC has estimated the number of people living below poverty at 38 percent of the total population now. Unveiling the tenth plan (2002-07) document, Dr. Shankar Sharma, the vice chairman of the Commission Sharma said that there was no need to observe "plan holiday" as demanded by some economists as the plan document had become crucial to launch poverty reduction programs and mobilize foreign aid.

He said that up to 58 percent of the total development expenditure in the plan period was expected to be met from foreign aid. The plan has set the target of attaining 6.2 percent growth in normal scenario (that is, if law and order situation improves). In low-case scenario, the plan has set the target of over 4.3 percent growth. If the situation is average, it expects the growth to be around 5.25 percent.

The plan envisages the agro sector to grow by 4.1 percent on normal scenario and by 2.8 percent on low case scenario. Likewise, the non-agriculture sector would grow by 7.5 percent and 5.2 percent on normal and low case scenario respectively.

The tenth plan expects there will be investment in the range of Rs 490 to Rs 640 billion during the plan period. The government expenditure in this period is expected to be in the range of Rs 205 to Rs 234 billion. It targets that 57 to 58 percent of development budget will be met by foreign aid. The development expenditure and foreign aid, the plan expects, to rise by 10 to 15 percent and 7 to 11 percent respectively.

The Ninth Plan, which had targeted to achieve 6 percent growth, suffered from situation of insecurity leading to even the negative growth of 0.63 percent on its final year which resulted in the overall growth rate of mere 3.6 percent during the period.

The plan approved by the NPC meeting will now be sent to the Council of Ministers for final go ahead. Officials, however, said the broad principles of the plan document are already being implemented from this fiscal year.