Energy Security tops 10th Five-Year Plan
The PML-N government has decided to place energy security on top in the 10th Five-Year Development Plan and will also rely on increasing taxes, investment and exports by moving away from a donor-funded growth model.
Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal unveiled on Monday the** seven pillars** on which the development plan would be structured. Now this plan will be implemented and the Framework of Economic Growth, which had been approved by the previous government but was never implemented, was scrapped.
“In the next five years, we want to ensure energy security and therefore this will be the first guiding principle of the new five-year plan,” said Iqbal.
Unlike the past when sub-sectors of water, electricity and gas were disintegrated at the planning stage, in the 10th plan the policy for these areas will be formulated on an integrated basis, he said.
The next pillar is stabilisation of the economy on a sustainable basis and the plan will focus on tapping indigenous resources while moving away from relying on exogenous resources like foreign aid and remittances. “The future of the country is in TIE – tax, investment and exports,” he added.
He associated future economic development with** private sector-led growth,** saying public investment alone could not boost growth due to increasing needs of investment in mega projects.
This will be the third guiding theme. To promote public-private-partnership, a legal cover will be provided under the 10th plan.
The government will also encourage commodity-based production sectors to shift to** value addition** for making big fortunes instead of solely depending on exports of raw products.
In the plan, the fourth pillar will be the promotion of commodity-based sectors. The government will introduce separate policies for industrial and agriculture sectors. The focus will be on identifying clusters and facilitating export products.
Modernization of infrastructure will be the fifth pillar of the development plan aimed at getting maximum benefits from the country’s geographical position. Iqbal said the China trade corridor initiative would be part of this approach.
Reforming the institutions and introducing E-Governance will be another theme under which reforms will be introduced in the public sector.
In this drive, the minister announced, reforms would be undertaken first in the dysfunctional Planning Commission. He vowed that the commission would be made an exemplary institution for the rest of government departments to follow.
As a first step, Iqbal, who also holds the position of Planning Commission deputy chairman, launched an initiative called the** ‘Official and Officer of the Month’ **and handed over appreciation certificates and prize money to Assistant Mohammad Ahmad Khan and an officer Hanan Ishaq for outperforming others in June.
He announced that the honorarium and opportunities for foreign travel would be linked with exceptional performance, moving away from the traditional approach of treating everyone equally without looking at their performance.
The last pillar of the development plan will be building the social sector. Iqbal said so far the emphasis had been “on building hard wares by compromising the soft side of development”.
The government would make policies to promote education, increase health facilities, reduce poverty and harness the potential of youth for making a progressive Pakistan, he added.
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Published in The Express Tribune, July 2[SUP]nd[/SUP], 2013.
*http://tribune.com.pk/story/570997/energy-security-tops-10th-five-year-plan/
