Economy to grow at 7.01%

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 5: The State economy is targeted to grow at 7.01% during the current financial year as compared to 6.22% in 2011-12 and 5.96% in 2010-11 and the expected higher rate of growth is in line with the projections made for the 12th Five Year Plan.
This has been revealed in the Economy Survey tabled in the Legislative Assembly by the Minister for Finance, Abdul Rahim Rather today.
“While it is expected that the Indian economy will turn around and revive its growth momentum, the J&K has not only maintained the increasing growth trajectory since 2009-10 but accelerated it further to new heights especially during 2011-12 and 2012-13 when the growth rate clocked to over 6%, better than the national level”, the Economic Survey said.
“As per the advances estimates of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at constant prices (2004-05), the State economy is expected to grow at 7.01% during 2012-13, which is in line with the projections made for the 12th Five Year Plan”, the Survey said, adding “the 12th Five Year Plan envisages growth rate to move up over the years starting with 7% in the first year of the plan and reaching to 8% in the fifth and terminal year thereby achieving average growth rate of 7.5% during the entire plan period”.
At disaggregated level, the trend growth of 2012-13 comprises 3.84% growth in agriculture and allied activities, 3.17% in industry and 10.10% in services as compared to growth of 3.69%, 2.1% and 9.38% respectively during 2011-12 (quick estimates).
The per capita income of J&K at current prices has been worked out at Rs 50806 in 2012-13 (advance estimates) as against Rs 44533 in 2011-12 thereby expected to grow at 14.09%. However, at constant (2004-05) prices, it is expected to rise to Rs 30889 in 2012-13 as against Rs 29215 in 2011-12 thereby expected to witness an increase of 5.73%, the Economy Survey said, adding the State has collected a record own revenue of Rs 4745 crore during 2011-12 and the percentage increase was 36.23 % over the figures of 2010-11.
“While the size of annual and five year plans is on steep increase with liberal central assistance, the need for ensuring a regular vigil on the quality parameters of developmental expenditure has surfaced more strongly than ever”, the Survey said, adding “conduct of evaluation studies across the State on wide spectrum of development projects/schemes is a regular feature of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics. In a recent evaluation study on Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme conducted in two sample districts with wide sample base, it has come to the fore that 18% of the reported beneficiaries were not traced in the field which puts a question mark on the genuineness of the beneficiaries. The promptness in weeding out the expired and other ineligible beneficiaries from the live list of beneficiaries too was lacking”.
According to the Economy Survey, transmission and distribution losses in the State have remained stagnant and are very high of the order of 61.61%. “The gap between receipts from power consumers and expenditure on power purchases has continuously been rising. From Rs 275 crore in 2002-03, the deficit has grown to Rs 1993 crore during 2012-13”, it added.
The Survey further said, “the State had a committed liability of estimated Rs 3368 crore on account of four installments of 6th Pay Commission arrears as on March 31, 2012 which are to be paid in four yearly installments”.

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