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Planning Commission placates Jaya

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday met planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to discuss the state’s annual plan outlay. After the meet, the Commission approved Rs 37,128 crore as the annual plan expenditure for the current fiscal for Tamil Nadu.

Highlighting the key points of the plan, AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa said, ‘The annual Plan outlay for Tamil Nadu for the year 2013-2014 has been fixed at Rs 37,128 crore. We sought a plan outlay of 37,000 crore and over and above that the union planning commission has agreed to give us Rs 128 crore as additional central assistance. So, the total plan size is Rs 37,128 crore.’

Elucidating on the financial assistance meted out to the state, she said, ‘A 20 per cent cut was made by the Government of India in the plan expenditure in the revised estimates for 2012-2013. Last year in 2012-2013, the central government budgeted plan assistance for Tamil Nadu for Rs 3,473.48 crore. But finally the amount released was only Rs 2762.14 crore. So, the credibility of the entire planning and budgetary process has been undermined and the state finances and scheme implementation have been adversely affected as a result.’

She went on to say, ‘In spite of being let down by the Government of India, the Tamil Nadu government not only fulfilled but overachieved its plan outlay of Rs 28,000 crore fixed for the last year 2012-13 with the state’s own resources.’

‘Not only that the additional central assistance (ACA) for 2012-13 last year was fixed at 160 crore rupees but only Rs 128.63 crore was actually released. The remaining amount of Rs 31.37 crore was not released in the previous financial year. The non-release of additional central assistance promised in a meeting of the union planning commission at the level of the deputy chairman with the state chief minister is a serious matter and we hope that this is an aberration and will not be repeated again this year and we hope that whatever the central government or the union planning commission has committed itself to this year will be released in full,’ she added.

Giving her views on the current amount sanctioned to the state, she said, ‘Coming to this year’s plan outlay, I have already said it has been fixed at Rs 37,128 crore. In terms of resources, 91 per cent of the plan will be financed through the state’s own resources supported by budgetary borrowings and only 9 per cent will come from the centre. That is all that is to say about the meeting that took place today. This is a routine administrative business.’

In her discussion with Ahluwalia, Jayalalithaa stressed that she was disappointed that despite the state’s efforts to mobilize resources to finance the plan last year, ‘ the central government’s support to the state plan has not been in line with the promises made.’
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