Calling it a historic correction, Narendra Jadhav, member of Planning Commission, said he had for the first time included as many as 35 Maharashtrians in the six consultative groups of the commission formed in the areas such as education, labour and employment and social justice for the mid-review of the 11th five-year plan.

Addressing a press conference in the city on Sunday, Jadhav said, “It has been observed that there has been very little representation of Maharashtra in various committees of the Planning Commission even as Maharashtra has some top experts in various areas. I wanted to do the historic correction by including some of them in the consultative groups of at least my areas of planning,” he said.

As a member of Planning Commission Jadhav leads areas such as education, labour, employment and capacity building, sports and youth affairs and social justice and empowerment. There are six consultative groups in these areas: 1) School education and literacy 2) Higher and technical education 3) Labour, employment and capacity building 4) Sports and youth affairs 5) Welfare of SCs and OBCs and 6) Welfare of tribes.

“These six groups will review the progress of 11 th five-year plan (2007-2012) in the last two and half years and forward recommendations to the commission to make necessary changes that will be reflected in the 2010-11 budget,” said Jadhav. Prominent names from the state that feature in these consultative groups are former justice Chandrashekhar Dharmadhikari, socialist leader Bhai Vaidya, vice chancellor of Mumbai University Vijay Khole, labour movement leader M K Pandhe, AKD Jadhav, leader of nomadic tribes and author Laxman Mane and former Indian Test cricket captain Ajit Wadekar.

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