With just 10-months to go for the UPA-II Government’s tenure to end at the helm and with several policy decisions related to big ticket projects still stuck in limbo, in a last ditch effort to push reforms in sectors like aviation, steel, urban transport and textiles, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has outlined long term policy frameworks for them which include setting up of an alternative fuel-based urban transport system, and growth strategy for steel and textile sectors.
A meeting has been called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later this month of a high level committee on manufacturing consisting of top officials from key ministries like Finance, Civil Aviation, Defence, Commerce, Heavy Industries, Steel and Textiles to formulate strategies to put these sectors on long term growth path. Chairman of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) V Krishnamurthy would also be present in the meeting.
In fact, NMCC has played a key role in the formulation of the high level committee, as it had been formed to formalise ways to strengthen the manufacturing sector in the country.
According to sources privy to information, the PMO is keen to chart out a pilot project for public transport which is likely to include strategy for setting up an alternative fuel-based transport system.
In addition to this, the high level committee on manufacturing is expected to hold discussions on setting up a mission for developing a better transportation aircraft facilities.
With State-run Steel Authority of India ltd (SAIl) unable to meet its expansion plans targets, the committee is also to finalise a competitive steel growth strategy, sources informed. For the textile sector also a similar roadmap lining up a competitive long term growth strategy is to be discussed by the high level panel.
The meeting called by the Prime Minister emanates from the concerns expressed by him towards weakening of investors sentiments towards India owing to sluggish growth of various infrastructure sectors like highways, railways, power, petroleum and civil aviation due to various policy bottlenecks, and recently he had even highlighted the need to unleash the “animal spirit” towards achieving this end.
Also this meeting of the panel on manufacturing comes close on the heels of last week’s review meeting conducted by the Prime Minister on June 28 when he had monitored the status of major infrastructure projects in the abovementioned sectors and asked the concerned ministries to roll out these on the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode within the next six months. He had even fixed targets for these projects for the current fiscal.
During the June 28 meeting, the PM had highlighted the need to ramp up investment in infrastructure to revive investor sentiments. After the meeting, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who was also present in the meeting, had said that while projects worth `1,15,000 crore were targetted, it would be a “big achievement” for the Government if projects worth `1,00,000 crore are able to take off by end of the current fiscal.