Addressing the joint Session of Parliament, the President Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil said that the country’s economy grew at a handsome rate of 8.4 percent in 2010-11, but it has slow down to about seven percent this year.
She asserted that this remains a healthy growth given current global trends. She said that India’s growth prospects arise from factors such as high domestic savings and investments rates, favourable demographics, and a stable democratic polity.
Mrs. Patil said the year 2012-13 will mark the first year of the 12th Five Year Plan that sets the goal of faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth. She said, the Approach Paper sets a target growth rate of nine percent for the 12th Plan period with four percent growth for the agriculture sector.
Mrs. Patil said that government is committed to provide an honest and more efficient government and has taken several further important steps towards that end.
She said a formidable and unprecedented array of Bills has been introduced in the Parliament including the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons Making the Disclosure Bil, the Prevention of Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and Officials of Public International Organizations Bill, Citizens’ Right to Grievance Redress Bill, the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill and the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill to achieve the goal.
She exuded confidence that these Bills will bring a transformation changke in curbing corruption and enhancing transparency and accountability in governance.
On bringing black money back to the country stashed away abroad, Mrs. Patil said that government has initiated action on various fronts to tackle the menace of black money.
These include enactment of the Benami Transactions Prohibition Act, amendment of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, setting up of a special committee to examine measures to strengthen laws to curb black money generation in the country among other initiatives.
The President opined that efficient and automated delivery of public services with minimum human intervention is one of the keys to reducing corruption.
She said new e-Governance projects in education, health, public distribution and postal services will be launched for providing easy services to citizens. She said departments responsible for Income Tax, Passports, Central Excise and Corporate Affairs have started delivery online services.
She further added that the unique Identification Programme ADHAAR will improve service delivery for millions of underprivileged people to improve service delivery in social sector programmes improving accountability and transparency leading to their financial inclusion.
Dwelling at length on health sector, Mrs. Patil announced that the National Rural Health Mission will be converted into a National Health Mission covering urban areas also in the 12th Plan.
She said, to attend the goal of universal healthcare government will increase both Plan and Non-Plan public expenditure in the Centre and the States taken together to 2.5 percent of the GDP by the end of the 12th Plan.
She said the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana will be further expanded and around seven crore families will be provided health insurance cover under this scheme by the end of the 12th Plan.
On empowering minorities, the President said that government has decided to provide a sub-quota of 4.5 percent for socially and educationally backward classes belonging to minorities, within the 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Classes.
She said the outstanding loans to minority communities by public sector banks have increased to 14.5 percent of priority sector lending for the year 2011-12. She asserted that the government will make all efforts to reach the target of 15 percent during 2012-13.
On agricultural sector, Mrs. Patil said that it has grown at 6.6 percent during 2010-11 with record production of foodgrains, fruits and vegetables. She said that credit to agriculture reached about 4,60,000 crore rupees in 2010-11 which is 22 percent above the target. She expressed confidence that 2011-12 target of 4,75,000 crore rupees will be achieved.
The President asserted that government will continue to focus on ensuring greater transparency, efficiency and accountability in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.
She said the scheme has benefited 25 crore people so far. She said the guidelines of the Scheme have been revised to ensure that it can be better aligned with the objective of raising land productivity.