List of infrastructure projects within 10 days, says Montek

In its sustained effort to fight economic slowdown, the Planning Commission today said it would come out with a list of infrastructure projects, which call for additional resources, in 10 days and approach the finance ministry for the required funds.

“We are reviewing the programmes that exist. Wherever the programmes are moving sufficiently rapidly and will exhaust the money they have, we will ask the finance ministry to provide additional resources...That estimate we will have in about another 10 days,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters.

“I have asked the Planning Secretary to do a full review of what is possible and we will have a better idea in a couple of weeks,” he said.

The government, he said, was trying to increase the fiscal stimulus in the current financial year as the recessionary trends were expected to continue even in the next fiscal.

“It is very important that we start planning now, so that next year we are ready to provide a major thrust to infrastructure,” Ahluwalia added.

He said the government has streamlined the process of clearing infrastructure projects and many of them have been cleared.

“We must ensure that financing of these projects is not a problem...We are looking at what is possible. We may again discuss with the finance ministry how best we can speed up financial closures,” Ahluwalia added.

Yesterday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that the expenditure secretary had been advised to keep in mind the additional expenditure requirements of ministries and departments while drawing revised estimates.

Chidambaram said another note from the Planning Commission for providing more funds to infrastructure, especially to the India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd, was being studied by the RBI and the finance ministry.

The government, he added, was at present trying to build up momentum as the infrastructure projects had huge time lags, and the impact on work undertaken now would be visible in three-four months from now.