Patna, July 17: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today released the approach paper for the 12th five year plan, setting the ambitious target of achieving 13 per cent rate of growth against the national target of nine per cent and resolving to bring the per capita income in the state closer to the national average.

“We achieved 12.08 per cent growth rate against the target of 8.5 per cent in the 11th five year plan, circumventing many challenges in the way,” Nitish said. “We always strive for growth with justice, which means the growth of all sections of people and all parts of the state. Our target of 13 per cent growth is realistic given our track record.”

The approach paper proposes to spend over Rs 2 lakh crore during the 12th plan against Rs 75,000 crore in the 11th plan. The plan expenditure has grown enormously in the state that had spent barely Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000 crore during the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth five year plans when the Lalu Prasad-Rabri Devi regime was in office.

This is the second successive plan period in which the Bihar government has come out with its own approach paper — a feature confined to the central government. “There was no tradition in the state to prepare its own approach paper prior to us,” Nitish said. “The state has set up a new benchmark of apprising the Planning Commission on how it has worked to set the direction of its growth and development.”

The statistics reeled off by the state planning board suggest that Bihar’s infrastructure building had grown over the past seven years.

“Never before the 11th five year plan had the state achieved growth beyond four per cent,” Nitish said. “The growth rate hovered between two per cent and four per cent between the first and ninth five-year plans.”

The statistics also showed that the per capita income in the state stood only at 30 per cent of the national average before 2005. Now, it is nearly 68 per cent of the national average. “No other state in the country has bridged the gap in the per capita income so fast,” a senior planning department official told The Telegraph. “Even the Planning Commission has accepted the state’s efforts with its economy and infrastructure.”

Nitish reiterated his demand for special category status, saying it would help attract investors.

The chief minister pointed out that agriculture, on which nearly 90 per cent of the people depended for livelihood, was his government’s “top priority”.

“In our approach paper we have set a target of seven per cent growth rate in agriculture alone,” Nitish said.