He said he was confident that the economy would grow at the targeted rate and all macro-economic indicators stay at stable levels. The nuclear sanctions imposed on the country in the aftermath of the Pokhran tests had failed to impact the country in any adverse manner. ``Some of us in this country have made much of the sanctions. I was criticised by them for not factoring the effect of sanctions into the budget and not being seriously worried about it. Lookingback, I have been proved right and they have been proved wrong,'' the minister asserted.

The government was taking adequate steps to ensure that projects with tie-ups for US Exim credit guarantees were not delayed on account of the sanctions, but got the benefit of similar arrangements with countries which had not imposed sanctions. Sinha will meet representatives of the power ministry, state governments and independent power producers on Tuesday to thrash out issues standing in the way of remaining fast-track power projects, hanging fire for the past seven years.

``We will sit across the table and sort out problems. We will say yes or no. But we will take a quick decision,'' the minister said in his address at the 162nd annual general meeting of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) here today. Coming down heavily upon previous regimes for holding up the fast-track projects, Sinha said, ``what kind of a fast-track project are these. We have been talking about them year after year, but havedone very little. We have to get past inter-ministerial wrangles and move forward,'' he said.

He said the cumbersome procedures in the country had been the single biggest problem reported by foreign investors.

NBFC policy soon

CHENNAI: The finance ministry is currently in the process of evolving a policy to facilitate non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) play their role in the growth of the economy without hurting small investors, in general.

Finance minister Yashwant Sinha said the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) were working in tandem to come out with ``a set of measures to enable the concerns of NBFCs are redressed'' without affecting the cause of investors.