New Delhi, March 22: The BJP-led coalition government is setting up an inter-ministerial panel to clear all core-sector proposals which have been hanging fire for a long time, sources said. The move is seen as an attempt to infuse life into long-dormant infrastructure productsThe panel will consist of secretaries from all ministries concerned and will clear projects within a fixed timeframe. It will be in a nature of a `high-powered single-window clearing body' for core-sector projects.
First on the panel's agenda will be getting the fast-track power projects off the starting block. The move, which has the approval of all the coalition partners of the BJP, has been tailored to project the new government as being reform-friendly.
``The government is committed to the national agenda, where it has promised to focus the government's energies on building adequate infrastructure,'' a source said.
Several projects in the power sector have been awaiting clearance for a long time. Power companies have to gothrough the tortuous process of negotiating power purchase agreements (PPA) with state electricity boards (SEBs) and then go to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) for a final clearance.
British company National Power is not as yet sure whether it will be able to go ahead with its 1,000mw power plant at Vizag. Also in the queue are projects by two other British companies, PowerGen and National Grid. US companies awaiting approval for their projects include Cogentrix, AES Transfer, Eastern Generation and National Grid.
The panel will chalk out a strategy to exempt showcase multi-state power projects from having to obtain techno-economic clearance from the Central Electricity Authority. Showcase projects are power plans with a capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts and which serve more than one state. The government plans to award these projects on the basis of direct negotiations rather than through competitive bidding.
In the telecom sector, satellite-based mobile telephony project proposals ofcompanies such as Iridium, ICO Global and Globalstar are still mired in uncertainty. The fate of the projects is not known after more than two years of negotiating with various agencies.
A plan of Globalstar, which is a consortium of three companies, has been rejected by the FIPB four times. It only has a provisional clearance from the FIPB and is waiting for a final clearance from the DoT.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
