Union Cabinet sets cabinet committee to fast track approvals for mega projects

14 Dec 2012 Evaluate

Making major economic decisions, the Union Cabinet has decided to set up a cabinet committee under the Prime Minister to fast track approvals for mega projects of over Rs 1,000 crore. There are over 100 projects, each requiring investment of over Rs 1,000 crore, which are held up because of slew economic decisions by the government.

The high-powered panel for quick approval of infrastructure projects was initially mooted by Finance Minister P Chidambaram who had suggested at the meeting of the National Development Council for creation of a National Investment Board for the purpose. However, Cabinet renamed the proposed body as Cabinet Committee on Investment of mega projects. Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan had written to the Prime Minister over her reservations in creation of NIB and emphasized about the requirement of approval of green mega projects. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have addressed all the concerns of the Environment Ministry.

To prop up economy and to boost investor confidence the government has taken the various decisions on specific measures in the last few months. The cabinet also cleared the controversial Land Acquisition Bill which makes it mandatory to take the permission of 80 percent of people whose land is taken for private projects and in case of Public-Private Partnership projects permission of 70 percent of the people will mandatory. On Infrastructure cabinet committee decided to simplify procedures to make the awarding of road projects faster.

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