Chidambaram to meet ministries' financial advisors, PM's economic council.
According to senior ministry officials, the loan is expected to be approved within six months. The plan is to construct two rail corridors between Delhi-Mumbai (western corridor) and Delhi-Kolkata (eastern corridor). These would be exclusively for freight trains and run parallel to the national highways connecting the four metros.
The project, which is being implemented on build-operate-transfer basis by the concessionaire Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, is expected to be completed by February 2010, before the commencement of the Commonwealth Games. A special purpose vehicle by the name Jaypee Infratech Ltd has been incorporated recently to implement the project by the concessionaire.
India-born steel magnate LN Mittal met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on December 8 to discuss his plans in the oil and gas sector in India. The meeting has led to reports that Mittal is interested in taking over Cairn India's assets, which includes prospective oil discovery in Rajasthan.
Compliance levels in India have improved significantly over the past few years with 85 per cent of the country's 31.9 million tax payers filing income tax returns in 2006-07. But this is still below the near-100 per cent compliance levels in developed countries.
The Delhi government has already cleared the first of these, the 16.3-km Ambedkar Nagar-Delhi Gate corridor, under its proposed high-capacity busy system project.
With an eye on channelising domestic savings into the power sector, the finance ministry is considering granting income-tax exemptions for individual investments up to Rs 50,000 in power infrastructure bonds.
The suggestion is to introduce a "capital transaction tax" based on the "circle rate" of the state in which the deal is registered.
Rising compliance, buoyant collections may prompt this move
This will be a measure to provide start-up entrepreneurs and professionals the much-needed flexibility in setting up a business in India.
If implemented, the central government's proposal to hike the age of retirement of its employees from 60 to 62 will defer by two years its pension liabilities of around Rs 14,749 crore (Rs 147.49 billion), according to the Invest India Economic Foundation (IIEF).
In a move that will benefit over 10 million central and state government employees, besides those in the defence services, the ministry of personnel is finalising a proposal to raise the retirement age of central government officials from 60 to 62 years. If approved by the Cabinet, this will be the second time in nine years that the retirement age will be raised.
The communications ministry is of the view that telecom tariffs in India can fall further to almost half their current levels - with local intra-circle calls for 25 paise and nationwide long distance calls for 50 paise - provided new operators are allowed to start services.
State governments are gradually taking initiative as far as developing highways is concerned.
Experts say this is a landmark deal that tackles a long-pending issue and will boost Russian investment in India's energy, minerals and defence sectors. The debt, accumulated over several years till April 15, 2007, is parked with the Reserve Bank of India. Explaining the agreement, Indian officials said a Russian company planning to invest in India would deposit rouble funds equivalent to their proposed investment with the Russian central bank.
Bharti Airtel and United Breweries have expressed interest in acquiring, respectively, the Delhi and Bangalore or Mumbai teams in the impending Indian Premier League for Twenty20 cricket matches.
The view follows a detailed review of the matter by DoT since March this year, after Dayanidhi Maran, then communications minister, asked officials to provide details about the possibility of the Tata-owned VSNL being allowed to retain the land. This latest recommendation, made in September, comes despite the fact that the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs had, in December 2005, approved hiving off the land bank into a separate company.
Some new sectors in which the commerce ministry has proposed to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) are credit information companies and commodity exchanges. The ministry is in favour of allowing up to 49 per cent FDI proposed in both these sectors. In proposing to open up the commodity sector, the ministry has said that FII investment be limited to 24 per cent, with a condition that a foreign investor cannot hold more than 10 per cent equity in the investing companies
As foreign fund flows have lifted the rupee to record highs against the dollar, the commerce ministry has started telling exporters to prepare for the Indian currency rising further to 38 against the dollar by December. The strong rupee is already hurting India's exporters, with companies cutting jobs and scaling back expansions. A further appreciation may have even worse consequences for sectors like textile, infotech and automobile.
Even as record foreign fund flows lifted the rupee to 39.43 against the US dollar today, the highest since 1999, the commerce ministry has started telling exporters to prepare for the rupee rising even further to 38 against the US dollar by December. The strong rupee is already hurting India's exporters, with companies cutting jobs and scaling back expansion. A further appreciation may have even worse consequences for sectors like textiles, infotech and automobiles.
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