Govt to consider FDI proposals of Vodafone, Dish TV on July 6

The government will take up 55 proposals for foreign direct investments (FDI), including that of Dish TV, Vodafone Essar and BNP Paribas, next week.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), headed by Department of Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan, was earlier scheduled to meet on Friday, but the meeting has been postponed to July 6.

In the telecom sector, FIPB will consider applications for FDI by Vodafone Essar, Cordia International Corp, USA, Essar Capital Holdings (India), Mumbai, besides others.

In the information and broadcasting segment, there are eight FDI proposals including that of Dish TV India and Walt Disney Company India.

Request of Paris based BNP Paribas, decision on which was deferred in the meeting of FIPB held on May 20, is also on the Board's agenda.

In the last meeting, the Board had cleared 16 FDI proposals amounting to Rs 923.55 crore, including those of Star News Broadcasting Ltd and L&T Finance Holdings.

Although India has been liberalising its FDI policy, the inflows slowed in the first four months of 2011. The inflows were Rs 29,189 crore, down about 10 per cent from Rs 32,535 crore in the same period last year.

FDI inflows since April 2,000 have totalled Rs 5,94,569 crore.