The meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) will be presided over by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday. The NDC, which consists of chief ministers of States, will approve the 12th Five Year Plan for the country.

On the eve of the NDC meeting the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahhluwalia said : 'Our objective is that we should be going in for a more optimistic scenario ... And probably if we reflect, what we now know (is that) instead of 8.2%, it would be better to pitch it at 8%.”

'I would raise that issue in the NDC,' he said.

This lowering of growth target, he added, follows changes in the global and domestic economy since the approval of the Approach Paper by the NDC in October last year.

This is the second time that the Planning Commission will be scaling down the growth projection for the 12th Plan (2012-17).

After initially estimating the growth rate at 9% in its Approach Paper, it lowered the target to 8.2% in September 2012 in view of global economic worries and persistent sluggishness in domestic growth.

In the 11th Five Year Plan, the average annual growth rate was 7.9%.

For the current fiscal, which would be the first year of the 12th Plan, the growth rate has been estimated at 5.7-5.9%, which would be the lowest in the last decade.