With the NDA Government completing its 100 days in office on September 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to review the performance of key infrastructure sector ministries like petroleum, coal, power, environment, mines and steel as well as roads during a high level meeting scheduled for September 10.
The meeting assumes significance as in terms of policy decisions, action within these key infrastructure ministries is yet to begin. Several ministries like steel and mines as well as coal are yet to see any movement in terms of concrete action as their respective ministers have kept themselves busy with other departments which they simultaneously handle.
According to sources, Modi, who had met Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar as well as Minister for Environment and Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Monday, apparently to discuss their performances over the last three months, the September 10 meeting is supposed to be a high profile one. In this meeting, the policy decisions taken by the aforementioned infrastructure ministries since May, are to be reviewed, sources said.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, clearly mindful of decorating his 100 days report card, rode roughshod over oil marketing companies’ prerogative of deciding petrol rates, and tweeted on the eve of Independence Day that these will come down by Rs 2 a litre from August 15 onwards. Otherwise, he has not much to show of as all policy initiatives are still in various stages of planning.
Goyal has been active in his role as the Power Minister as well as the head of the New and Renewable Energy Ministry, however owing to his pre-occupation with these two departments, things have not moved much in the key Coal Ministry. Sources within the Government conceded that decision making has been slow in the Coal Ministry and no significant movement has been made in terms of any policy announcement.
The NDA Government has been cautious about allotment of coal blocks, and even though the Coal Ministry had during the tenure of the UPA Government, framed rules for allotting blocks through competitive bidding, the new dispensation has chosen to wait and watch rather than start the auction process, something which could have been a key policy initiative on its part of the past 100 days.
Also the Supreme Court declaring all the blocks allotted between 1993 and 2010 as “illegal” on Monday, has further put the Government on the defensive with top sources pointing out that any policy decision regarding allocation of blocks will be taken only after the apex court’s September 1 hearing (when it will decide whether or not to cancel the blocks).
In a sharp contrast, in the power sector, Goyal has focused on improving the transmission and distribution of the country and has kick started similar projects in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh as well as in J&K. In the New and Renewable Ministry too, he has announced a 2,000 mw solar power project in Punjab, while it is learnt that there is a proposal to light up border areas with solar power plants. The unique idea, sources said, has the backing of Modi, who is considered to be promoter or renewable energy.
Tomar too like Goyal, has been active as Minister for labour, however when it comes to his other departments like Mines and Steel, things have not moved at the desired level. While the Government failed to bring the much delayed Mining Bill - Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation (MMDR) Amendment Bill - in Parliament during the recently concluded session, the only achievement of the Mines Ministry in the last three months has been the introduction of new royalty rates for various minerals.
The new increased royalty rates came into effect last week after a delay of two years, and this has been the only development of note in the Mines Ministry. The Steel Ministry has more or less been in auto-pilot mode as Tomar hardly even visits its office in Udyog Bhavan. Important activities of the ministry, namely the capacity expansion of Steel Authority of India ltd (SAIl) as well as that of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam ltd (RINl) have been going on as per their schedule, but apart from this, the sector has not recorded anything of significance since May 26, when the NDA Government came to power.