“State has done well and expenditure realisation is satisfactory,” Ahluwalia said.

He said realisation during 11th Five-Year Plan was over 100 per cent.
The achievement in education especially in primary education was
appreciated but attention was drawn to quality of education. The state
was asked to focus on trained teachers in the meeting.

The
state registered an economic growth rate of 9.4 per cent during the 11th
Plan against growth target of 6.4 per cent. The overall state’s
economic growth target for 12th Plan is 8.3 per cent.

“The
Commission was aware of the need to further improve transportation
facility in the border areas and it would be given special attention in
the course of the year,” Ahluwalia said.

He drew attention to
the initiative of the Commission to bring flexibility in the centrally
sponsored programmes to improve efficiency and asked the state to make
suggestions in this regard.

The state was asked to draw pragmatic strategies towards the resource convergence approach in order to utilize the fund to offer an impetus to further growth under agriculture and allied sectors.

It was also pointed out that the development of irrigation facilities
under the AIBP desires more cohesiveness in terms of incremental area
gain for the net sown area in order to accelerate the area coverage in
comparison to rain fed farming.

The state was asked to incentivise private participation in PPP mode to fully exploit tourism potential.

The Chief Minister
said that substantial growth has been recorded in revenue generation
and additional Rs 350 crore were raised only through effective
implementation.

He said that a number of austerity measures
have been taken to improve fiscal health which include ban on creation
of new posts or purchase of new vehicles.

He said master plan
for agriculture development would be enforced shortly and a major effort
to bring down AT&C losses is being put in place.