Nagaland’s annual Plan for 2009-10

New Delhi: The annual Plan outlay of Nagaland for 2009-10 has been pegged at Rs 1,500 crore at a meeting between the Chief Minister of Nagaland, Mr Neiphiu Rio, and the Planning Commission, Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahulwalia.

In his opening remarks, Mr Ahluwalia complimented the State for plan performance as against a growth target of 5.56 per cent for the Tenth Plan, the State achieved 7.5 per cent. Agriculture, road communication and connectivity, education, healthcare, and water supply is satisfactory. He said the Planning Commission would review the Plan size after the presentation of the full budget by the new Government.

Appreciating the effort of the State in infrastructure development, he said the Commission has also laid special emphasis on infrastructure development in the North-East during the Eleventh Plan period. He said 83 per cent of the villages were now connected with fair-weather roads and 95 per cent of the villages have been electrified. All villages have primary schools and middle school for every cluster of four to five villages. The State Government was asked to improve focus on social sector.

The Chief Minister informed the Commission that during the next year major focus will be on the implementation of Central schemes including Swaranjayanti Gram Swrozgar Yojana, Indira Awas Yojana, Grant-in-aid to VDBs, Micro-Financing and Backward Region Grant Fund.

He pointed out that 640 lakh mandays of employment would be generated under NREGS. He said North Eastern States in general and Nagaland in particular have started feeling the effect of downturn and pointed out that Government’s initiatives to stimulate economy were not reaching them, an official release issued here said.