Mr. Vice Chairman Sir at the outset I must express my thanks to the hon. Members on both sides of the House who have participated in the discussion on the Tenth Five-Year Plan document. Hon. Members will very kindly appreciate that within the short time at my disposal it will not be possible for me to clarify all the points which they have raised during the course of the discussion. I am going to confine my remarks to certain important aspects of the discussion though I have taken note of almost all the points which hon. Members made during the course of the discussion. At the outset I must also say that one of the hon. Members was pleased to ask what is the purpose of having this kind of a discussion one and a half years or almost two years after the Plan has started? I do not know whether hon. Members do recollect that my predecessor Mr. Tiwari had circulated a note to all the members of this House particularly about the Tenth Plan framework and he expected that the hon. Members will be able to send their remarks to the Minister and also to the Planning Commission so that before the draft document of the Tenth Plan is prepared and finalised their views could be taken into account. How many members sent this kind of information is a matter which I will have to enquire into but that exercise was gone into and now the Plan was finalised in February 2001 and thereafter we have taken the earliest possible opportunity to see that the Plan is discussed in both the Houses. Sir I am aware of the fact that the international situation and also the internal situation in which this Tenth Five-Year Plan has been finalised will definitely have some kind of an impact on the Plan document as it was prepared and how we will be succeeding in trying to avoid the adverse effects it might have on the achievement of the physical targets that we have set for ourselves at the end of the Tenth Five-Year Plan. Sir there are three points which were mentioned by all the hon. Members. The first was that the Plan was prepared with 1999-00 as the base year and thereafter there has been a price rise of a considerable order. Sir the first thing which I would like to clarify is about the inflationary trend which has set in. One of the hon. Members Shri Sankar Ghose a very experienced member of this House who had also been in the Planning Commission and knows the intricacies of how the things are being worked out has been pleased to state here that the rate of inflation is very high and added to that the balance of payments position is going to be very bad. Compared with the percentage that we have worked out for the Tenth Plan as a whole for imports for the first year the import bill has risen very high. Then how is this assumption going to be correct? That is the point and a very valid point which he raised during the course of the discussion. Sir he also mentioned about the hon. Finance Minister making his speech at Kanpur wherein he seems to have made a reference that a little inflationary trend is a kind of a stimulant to the economy. Sir the inflationary trends we cannot view in isolation. Hon. Shri Sankar Ghose will definitely agree with us that there are two factors which will have to be taken into account. The first factor is the international situation which is now obtaining. Secondly whether we like it or not we have to import the oil products. If they are to be imported can we take a serious view of the situation? That is a thing which I am sure most of the hon. Members there will be able to appreciate. The second aspect is: Why is it that we have such a high import bill in 2000–01 when the Plan itself commenced and when we were talking in terms of 9 per cent. immediately in the very first year it jumped. I am sure that most of the hon. Members are aware of the fact that it is on account of the kind of legacy that this Government got. I would not like to dilate on that issue. But the fact of the matter is that the agricultural production had gone down. Even in the industrial sector there was a decline of 1.4 per cent. The coal production had considerably gone down in terms of production and the electricity generation was at the lowest. If we had to make a beginning which in fact is within the control of the Government of India with these infrastructural facilities which will have to be provided both in the agricultural sector and the industrial sector concerted efforts will have to be made. Submit