He announced that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) had submitted a draft grid code for private transmission and a draft regulations on other issues to the Government. These were under consideration and would be announced soon.

He also said that the contracts for the six mega power projects, identified by the Government for private sector participation, would be awarded latest by March 31, 1999. About 27 leading foreign companies had evinced interest in putting up these mega power projects, Kumaramangalam said.

These include the 1000 mw Cuddalore project in Tamil Nadu, 1500 mw Krishnapatnam in AndhraPradesh, 1000 mw Narmada and 2000 mw Pipavav in Gujarat and two other projects on the western coast.In addition to this, he said that the 3960 mw Hirma power project in Orissa, which had been negotiated on the MoU route, had also been put in the category of mega power projects.

However, unlike other mega power projects, where developers are yet to be identified, Hirma will be taken up by the Southern Electric Company of the UK.

The Minister said that the standing independent group was also talking to various domestic and international financial institutions for making these projects bankable.

In yet another attempt to defend the slow pace of reforms, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Jaswant Singh, said that investors should not fear the situations arising out of the ``dynamics of a participative democracy.'' Speaking at the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum and CII, Singh said that the Government was trying to grapple with a legacy of command economy and ensurethat reforms were not reversed.

He said that the present Government was committed to doubling its food production and expand social infrastructure to keep pace with economic reforms. ``We will pay equal emphasis on water, housing, education, health and sanitation. We will provide potable water to everyone within five years,'' he said. The Government was committed to spend 6 per cent of the country's GDP on education, he added.Singh said that 1768 laws had been found to be useless, but it would require some time to remove them as this involved a lengthy repeal process.

The construction of the ambitious 7,000 km express highway connecting northern and southern and eastern and western regions will begin in this month itself, Singh today said.

The Government has identified 30 points from where the construction is to commence, Singh, who is also the chairman of the task force on infrastructure, said here.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would inaugurate the construction activities on December 30, headded. Singh said the next meeting of infrastructure task force, scheduled for seventh or eighth of this month, would work out details of financing the Rs 28,000 crore mega project.

"We have appointed a sub-committee to device mechanism for funding and that sub-committee's report will be considered by the task force," he told reporters on the sidelines of the meet.

Asked whether construction of the five airports would also begin in this year itself, he said "work on airports is a bit more complicated and we are now going to define the parameters."