PM to chair first meet of new Plan panel on Aug 1

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a meeting of the full Planning Commission to discuss the status of the Integrated Energy Policy (IEP) besides reviewing the state of the national economy.

To be held on August 1,this would be the first meeting of reconstituted Planning Commission after the UPA government was voted back to power. A major dilemma the planners are faced with is controlling rise in prices of food items. “We will be covering two issues — one,is overview of the present state of economy,second is briefing the members on the status of action on the IEP,” panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said. Besides Ahluwalia,ministers in charge of finance,external affairs,human resource development and railways would attend the August 1 meeting to be chaired by the Prime Minister.

The meeting would also take stock of whether sectoral and growth targets of the 11th Plan are still attainable. Also to be discussed at the meeting is the dampening effect that controversies in the petroleum exploration sector and the power sector’s recurring failures have on the energy sector. Power minister Sushilkumar Shinde had recently in presence of Ahluwalia accepted that the growth target for his sector would have to be scaled down due to its poor performance.

Infrastructure development,which is facing continuous problems despite major government initiatives,would also figure in the meeting’s agenda.