The National Development Council approved the Eleventh Five Year Plan on 19 December 2007, which provides a comprehensive strategy for inclusive development. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister of India during this plan. C. Rangarajan was the framer of the Eleventh Plan. The period for the 11th plan started from 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2012. The main motto of the Eleventh Plan was “Rapid and Inclusive Growth“. Therefore, the ultimate aim of the 11th plan was to achieve a broad-based improvement in the living standards of people, making the growth both faster and more inclusive.
Objectives of Eleventh Five Year Plan
The objective of inclusiveness is reflected in the adoption of 26 monitorable targets at the national level relating to (i) income and poverty, (ii) education, (iii) health, (iv) women and children, (v) infrastructure, and (vi) environment. Some of these national targets had also been disaggregated into state-level targets. The specific objectives of the 11th Five Year Plan were as follow:
Income and Poverty
- To accelerate the GDP growth from 8% to 10%, and then maintain it at 10% in the 12th plan in order to double the per capita income by 2016-17.
- To increase the agriculture GDP growth rate to 4% per year.
- To create 70 million new job opportunities.
- To reduce educated unemployment to below 5%.
- To raise the real wage rate of unskilled workers by 20%.
- To achieve an average growth rate of 9% per annum for the Plan period.
Education
- To reduce the dropout rates of the children from the elementary schools from 52.2% in 2003-04 to 20% in 2011-12.
- To increase the enrollment in higher education for the 18-23 years of age group by 2011-12.
- To increase the literacy rate for persons of age seven years or more to 85%.
- To lower the gender gap in literacy to 10% points.
- To empower through education and skill development.
Health
- To raise the public health spending to 2% of the GDP during the plan period.
- To reduce the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) to 28 and the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) to 1 per 1000 live births.
- To reduce the Total Fertility Rate to 2.1.
- To reduce the malnutrition among children of age group 0-3 years to half of its present level.
- To reduce anaemia among women and girls by 50% by the end of the 11th plan.
- To provide clean drinking water for all by 2009.
Women and Children
- To raise the sex ratio of age group 0-6 years to 935 by the end of the 11th plan.
- To ensure that at least 33% of the direct & indirect beneficiaries of all government schemes are women.
- To ensure that all children enjoy a safe childhood.
- To reduce gender inequality.
Infrastructure
- To increase the growth rate in industry and services to 10% and 9%, respectively.
- To ensure all-weather road connection to all habitation with 1000 and above population (or 500 in hilly and tribal areas) by 2009.
- To ensure electricity connection to all villages and BPL households by 2009.
- To provide broadband connectivity to all villages by 2012.
- To provide homestead sites to all by 2012.
Environment
- To increase the forest and tree cover by 5% points.
- To attain WHO standards of air quality in all major cities by 2011-12.
- To treat all urban wastewater to clean rive waters by 2011-12.
- To increase the energy efficiency by 20% points by 2016-17.