NEW DELHI: Participating in a meeting of the National Development Council on the approach paper for the 11th Plan period, which was held here on Saturday, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy called for increase in the Centre's contributions for the Centrally-sponsored schemes, considering that much of the action to achieve the objectives of the 11th Plan would be in the domain of the States.

Flexibility sought

Urging that the Centre's contributions should be up to at least 75 per cent, he stressed that the Union Government should not normally have any scheme with an approved annual outlay of less than Rs. 500 crore and emphasised that more flexibility should be given to the State to make changes according to local needs. He called upon the Centre to reduce the interest rate on all loans to farmers to four per cent as has been done by the Karnataka Government in respect of the cooperative sector and urged early policy decisions on the issue of undertaking of some large capital-intensive irrigation projects as national projects. There was, he said, also a need to raise the cost limit for major irrigation projects needing environmental clearance from Rs. 100 crore to Rs. 450 crore, considering that the current ceiling was fixed in 1994.

He urged the Centre to play a pro-active role in making available natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin to the power sector and to facilitate laying of a natural gas pipeline from the basin to Bangalore and other major cities in Karnataka.

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