PTI
The cabinet has approved the draft Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the document of which will now be placed before the National Development Council  comprising of the Chief Ministers and the full Planning Commission headed by the Prime Minister.

The government has given a much awaited nod to the State Bank of India to enhance equity by 10,000 crore rupees. The move will help meet the bank's capital requirement.

The bank would enhance the capital by subscribing to the Rights issue of equity shares.

This would be done against the issue of marketable government securities and Statutory Liquidity Ratio.

Global oil major Royal Dutch Shell will buy Bharat Petroleum's 49 per cent stake in a lubricant marketing firm Bharat Shell Ltd.

The stake sale is worth 152.40 crore rupees. BPCL is exiting the joint venture company, floated in 1993 to market Shell branded lubricants in India. Shell currently holds 51 per cent stake in BSL.

Announcing the decision taken at the meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on Thursday night, Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi told reporters that this would enable operationalisation of the plan for the period 2007-12.

The draft plan document was cleared by the Planning Commission on 9th November, with a target of 9 percent annual economic growth, up from 7.6 percent in the Tenth Plan.

NDC, the country's highest policy making body, comprises the Prime Minister, Union Ministers, state Chief Ministers and members of the Planning Commission.

The Plan, the most ambitious document prepared by the Commission so far, aims at raising the average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate to nine percent with an estimated outlay of Rs 36,44,147 crore.

Among other things, it also proposes to increase farm sector growth rate to 4 percent from 2.13 percent in the previous Plan.

The Plan proposes to reduce poverty by 10 percentage points, generate 7 crore new employment opportunities and reduce unemployment among educated persons to less than 5 percent.

It will also focus on the education sector by increasing the outlay to 19 percent of the Central budgetary support from less than 8 percent in the previous Plan.