Speaking at the US Investment summit in Mumbai, he said, "Bureaucrats here think that they are the government, and this is frankly quite baffling. The government should pronounce in clear terms as to who is in charge, is it the public representatives or the bureaucrats?" he said adding that the Indian government should follow the US model where the bureaucracy is politically accountable.

India can have "tremendous" synergy with the US in knowledge-based industries and the Union Government is acting fast to address the areas of concern, finance secretary PG Mankad said on Monday.

Speking at the summit, Mankad said the policy makers are aware of the "legitimate" concerns of the business community and are striving to remove the obstacles. "Ours is a complex polity and foreign investors, at times, find it difficult to come to terms with what they find here. However, there is now a clear determination on our part to improve the operating environment," Mankad said. The finance secretary also made and strong pitch for US investment in the entertainment industry. "India offers tremendous promise in the entertainment sector and US companies can use India as a base for development of films, music and television software and net-based entertainment," he said.

The Government, Mankad said, is offering the highest priority to the development of infrastructure areas. "Things are looking much better. We hope to bring in the speed and transparency in infrastructure development," Mankad said.

Talking about the labour laws, which has been slackening the pace of development, Mankad said: "The need to reform labour laws is receiving the due attention of the Government. What we are looking at is not just reforms, but to restructure the labour laws so that it can become a vehicle for major employment creation."

On intellectual property rights, the Union finance secretary said that the government is looking at speeding up the delivery mechanism so as to help companies obtain patent and trade marks quickly. "On the legislative side, we are trying to modify and create new laws for safeguarding intellectual property rights." he said.

On the tax reforms, he said that Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha is holding a meeting with the state chief ministers to pave the way for transition to the VAT (value-added tax) structure.