With the ministers settling down after the large-scale reshuffle effected on Sunday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is holding a critical meeting with his council of ministers on Thursday to chalk out the roadmap and outline the priorities for the remaining period of the UPA-II tenure.
A senior government official in the know of the developments said this would be an agenda setting meeting for mapping out challenges and how to deal with them.
Stepping up investment, especially in the infrastructure sector, by fast clearances to the high-cost projects and effective co-ordination in the implementation of government agenda, would be at the core of the whole exercise, he added.
Besides Prime Minister, finance minister P Chidambaram is also slated to address the ministers and stress on the fiscal challenges facing the government and the required steps to overcome them.
Immediate challenges before the government includes reduction in the subsidies bill, create an atmosphere in which important legislations including Goods and Services Taxation (GST), Direct Taxes Code (DTC) and FDI related issues, especially in insurance and pensions, Companies Bill, Land Acquisition Bill and other pending legislations could be cleared in Parliament.
On the administrative side, any substantial revival in the investment scenario is yet to be seen and the government would be looking to speedily move forward on this count.
Prime minister Singh on Sunday substantially changed the constitution of the council of ministers by bringing in new faces and also elevating a number of ministers.
While ministers of state (MoS) including Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia got promoted to the MoS (independent) rank; Dinsha Patel, Ajay Maken, M M Pallam Raju and Ashwani Kumar were among the ministers elevated to the cabinet rank.
Officials from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) indicated that one of the main ideas behind elevation of ministers was to create a conducive atmosphere at the top level of the government to push reform measures smoothly.
PMO Clearing NIB Issues
Principal secretary to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Pulok Chaterji today held a meeting with the senior officials from the finance ministry including economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram and also officials from the other associated ministries to clear the doubts pertaining to the creation of proposed National Investment Board (NIB) for clearing mega infrastructure projects expeditiously.
Finance minister P Chidambaram proposed NIB under the chairmanship of Prime Minister at the full Planning Commission meeting in September.
Several ministries including environment and commerce have raised doubts over such a body since then leading to the extended consultation.
PMO now wants all the issues to be sorted quickly so that the draft note on NIB currently circulated by the finance ministry could be concretised and the final proposal is taken to the cabinet shortly, said an official.
