Chidambaram pitches for speedy clearance of proposals, PM-led Investment Board

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has suggested setting up of a National Investment Board (NIB) under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to accord speedy clearances to mega proposals.

The minister regretted that under the present dispensation, "a truly final decision (on projects) does not emerge for many years".

"The NIB's authority should extend to proposals/projects where the investment is above a certain threshold, say Rs 1,000 crore. Once the final decision is taken by the NIB, no other Ministry or Department or Authority should be able to interfere with that decision or delay its implementation," Chidambaram said during his intervention at the meeting of the full Planning Commission.

He said outlays in the 11th Five Plan fell short of targets mainly because of failure to achieve physical targets.

Giving illustrations, Chidambaram pointed out that addition in power generation capacity during the Plan period was 55,000 MW, against the target of 78,700 MW. Similar shortfalls were witnessed in other key sectors like coal, crude oil, gas and railways.



In order to overcome these problems, Chidambaram said "I would urge that we seriously consider the need to set up a mechanism at the Cabinet level to take final decisions on major investment proposals, especially in the infrastructure sector. The authority to take the final decision/decisions should be vested in a NIB to be chaired by the Prime Minister and the Allocation of Business Rules should be amended to create such a mechanism."

At present, the Business Rules allocate the authority to take the final decision to one or more ministries.

with inputs from PTI