Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has mandated his adviser, Vijay Kelkar, to reorganise the ministry.

While the details of the reorganisation are yet to be finalised, Kelkar has already held meetings with different ministries like petrochemicals, food processing and a few others to identify the areas where there is an overlap of functions.

This will be Kelkar's second major assignment after the reports on reforming the direct and indirect tax structure in 2002.

Government officials said Kelkar would oversee the largest reorganisation of the North Block since 1993 when Manmohan Singh was the finance minister.

Finance Secretary S Narayan has already held several meetings with officials of the department of economic affairs to discuss their job profile and the areas where their work overlap with other divisions.

The officials said areas like the duty drawback scheme for exports and the Tariff Commission might come under the finance ministry.

While the department of company affairs and the Foreign Investment Promotion Board have already come under the finance ministry, the proposed pensions regulatory authority will also report to the finance minister.

Singh had stressed reorganisation of the finance ministry during the Budget for 2003-04. He had said the restructuring would largely focus on the department of economic affairs.

The new department will have separate divisions dealing with economic policy and analysis, capital markets, budget, banking, trade aid concerns and infrastructure and co-ordination.

While infrastructure approvals may come back to the economic division, the capital market division may also be given a wider role. The powers of the aid and foreign trade divisions are likely to be clipped.

At present, the department of economic affairs has 15 divisions, while the expenditure department has six wings, including the controller general of accounts and cost accounts branch.

The department of revenue includes the boards of direct and indirect taxes, besides the different investigative bodies, including the department of revenue intelligence, the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate and the appellate tribunals.