Govt announces series of policy measures to arrest economic slowdown

16 Feb 2012 Evaluate

In a bid to push the economy on the path of growth and arrest any further economic slowdown, the government has announced a series of policies. A plethora of activities, apparently at the instance of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), have taken place in the economic ministries to send a strong signal that the government is keen to arrest further slackening of GDP growth. The recent policies announced by the government include assured supply of coal to power companies, relaxation of spectrum rules and removing environmental hurdles to the mega hydel project.

At the instance of the PMO, Coal India (CIL) was told to sign agreements for supply of fuel to power projects commissioned up to December 2011. CIL will sign fuel supply agreement (FSA) for a period of 20 years, by the end of March. The company is expected to import coal in case of shortages. The move is expected to help an estimated capacity of over 50,000 MW and has broken an old logjam between CIL and private operators. The government is also considering customs duty waiver on coal imports to reduce the impact of a steep rise in international prices of the fuel. These decisions are expected to remove major hurdles in the supply of coal thus ensuring a more regular supply of power in the country.

In another important decision, the government has said that all telecom service providers would be allowed to hold higher spectrum of up to 10 MHz. Current prescribed limit is 6.2 MHz of GSM spectrum. The decision is expected to have a positive impact on the sector and benefit old GSM operators in particular. Overruling ecological concerns, the Environment Minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, also gave the green signal for construction of a 1,750 MW Demwe Lower Hydro Electric hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh on Lohit river.

Further, to boost the National Manufacturing Policy, the government announced that units in the proposed mega industrial enclaves will be given highest priority for environmental clearances. Besides, the procedures for green approvals have been relaxed, exempting the individual units within proposed National Manufacturing and Investment Zones (NMIZs) from public hearings, once they have been held for the entire zone, provided they are notified by the concerned state government.

The proposed disinvestment plans of the government also saw some movement yesterday when the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee decided to offload 5% equity in the energy major ONGC through the auction route. The decision would help the government in mopping up Rs 12,000 crore from disinvestment within the current financial year. With less than one-and-half months to go for the current fiscal, the government managed to raise only Rs 1,145-crore from stake sale in Power Finance Corporation (PFC). Disinvestment in BHEL however, was deferred.

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