PMO push to infra projects; meeting on July 19

With an aim of accelerating infrastructure development, the PMO has convened a high-level meeting here later this week to review progress and award of projects worth Rs 3 lakh crore, including two airports and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor.

The meeting on July 19 will be chaired by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterji and attended by secretaries in the departments and ministries of Finance, Economic Affairs, Road, Transport & Highways, Shipping, Civil Aviation and Power besides Railway Board Chairman.

The meeting will discuss preparation and award of various projects with an estimated cost of Rs one lakh crore. These are Mumbai Elevated Rail Corridor, two locomotive projects, accelerating Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, one Expressway Project, one port, two airports and power and transmission projects, a PMO statement said.

The meeting will also discuss clearing of the backlog of railway projects estimated at Rs two lakh crore.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already approved the constitution of an inter-ministerial group consisting of Railway Board Chairman, Finance Secretary and Secretary, Planning Commission for this purpose.

The group will come up with a creative financing-cum- implementation mechanism for enhancing investment and for clearing backlog of projects of an estimated Rs two lakh crore in a prioritised manner, the statement said.

It will monitor progress on two locomotive projects (Rs 5,000 crore) and accelerating Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (Rs 10,000 crore) besides others.

The meeting is a follow-up of the one held by the Prime Minister with various ministers on June 28 where a decision was taken about expediting these infrastructure projects.

At that meeting, Singh had highlighted the need for ramping up investment in infrastructure to revive investor sentiment. He had emphasised that a lot of work was needed to be done to improve infrastructure sector and there should be no slackening of the pace of work.