MOSCOW : Deadline Slips

Soviet economists will be putting the finishing touches this week on what is being touted as a radical economic reform plan that was supposed to be ready last weekend.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced Friday that work was still in progress as he appeared to be trying to reconcile two competing versions--one submitted by a group working under radical economist Stanislav Shatalin and the other by Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov’s more conservative government.

The delay could cause parliamentary drama, as the legislature of the vast Russian republic, now headed by populist reformer Boris N. Yeltsin, may force the central government’s hand if it fails to act on its own.