After kicking off the Budget exercise early this week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday had a brain-storming session with Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on the state of the economy.
"They (prices of petroleum products) should be linked to world prices," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told PTI when asked about the global crude prices now surging to about $70 a barrel.
Yojana Bhawan is working overtime to complete the crucial Approach paper to the 12th Plan amidst a buzz that Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia may get a Cabinet berth in the reshuffle expected soon.
Says tradability will ensure greater economic efficiency & higher revenues for the government.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who has just resigned, on Monday remained non-committal on his prospects of becoming finance minister while describing reports on this as "speculation".
The meetings with Singh and Ahluwalia have taken place just two days before the announcement of the results of the general elections for the 15th Lok Sabha. Besides Karnik, the other nominees on the Satyam board are HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, former ICAI chairman T M Manoharan, CII chief mentor Tarun Das, LIC executive S B Mainak and former presiding officer of Securities and Appellate Tribunal C Achuthan.
Against the all-state average of Rs 3,049 per capita development expenditure, Bihar registered Rs 1,446 during 2005-06. Similarly agaisnt all-state average of Rs 3,826 and Rs 4,208, Bihar recorded per capita development expenditure of Rs 2,123 and Rs 2,184 during 2006-07 and 2007-08 respectively.
The Planning Commission said on Tuesday that emphasis on inclusiveness by the government should not be misconstrued as dilution of the overall growth agenda and the benefits should percolate to all strata of the society.
The Planning Commission on said food prices will come down in the next two months easing the overall inflation, which is currently at over 8.5 per cent.
As the debate is on to decontrol fuel prices, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Thursday said it would be a bad idea to continue with subsidies to keep oil prices subdued.
With the inflation rate almost halving from the peak levels in August and economic growth slackening, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said there is further scope for the Reserve Bank of India to cut lending rates.
During the fourth quarter of last fiscal, the economy had grown at a nine-year low rate of 5.3 per cent. During the entire fiscal of 2011-12, the economy grew by 6.5 per cent.
Amid the controversy raging over the definition of poverty, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday claimed that they have resolved the issue.
"If half a dozen other developing countries could do it, India can too. There are some things we need to do and if we do them right, there should be no doubt about achieving the projected growth rates," Ahluwalia said.
The Planning Commission sees stronger economic expansion in the second half which could push up the growth rate for the current fiscal to beyond 6.3 per cent projected earlier by the panel.
Indian economy grew at a nine-year low rate of 5.3 per cent in January-March quarter in the last financial year and also in the last fiscal at 6.5 per cent.
Ahead of the G-20 Summit, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will lead a delegation to a preparatory meet on March 11 in London where deliberations on issues like liquidity crunch and reforms in international financial institutions are likely be taken up.
In an interview to CFO Asia, a publication of The Economist Group, Montek Singh Ahluwalia said the general public was opposed to privatisation of state-owned enterprises although they feel that public sector was inefficient and corrupt.
Concerned over rising food prices, planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday pitched for increasing supplies through imports and better use of the public distribution system.
As China's ruling CPC appointed 'fifth generation' leaders headed by Xi Jinping, high-level Sino-India contacts are set to resume this month starting with the Strategic Economic Dialogue, which would be followed by a likely visit of National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon in Beijing.
The meeting is likely to focus on removing impediments which are hampering implementation of the announced projects and policies which have been on the drawing board for long, official sources said. The social sector agenda of the prime minister includes pushing the Aam Admi Bima Yojana and Old Age Pension for the labour class, besides revamping Integrated Child Development Scheme and strengthening the public distribution system.
Already Puducherry owed to the Centre as much as Rs 4040 crore (Rs 40.4 billion) over the years as loan and interest.
Planning Commission on Friday said there is no case for providing stimulus to the industry to arrest moderating growth as the fiscal deficit is high and may exceed the Budget estimate of 4.6 per cent by about one percentage point.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, however, had said that stimulus measures need to continue till there is robust recovery in the developed world, which account for bulk of India's exports.
The Planning Commission on Tuesday said it expected industrial production to beat last year's growth and attributed the revival to various stimulus measures. His comments came after latest government data showed that factory production grew 11.7 per cent in November last year.
The government has plans for the third round of spectrum auction and may put on block 2G GSM airwaves in Delhi and Mumbai circles, and CDMA spectrum in 13 circles that remained unsold in the previous sale held in March, according to sources.
The Energy Co-ordination Committee, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would meet on Tuesday with gas pricing, gas sourcing and gas allocation as the main topics on the agenda, an official source said.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia warned that any extraordinary steps to contain inflation may prove counter-productive.
Monsoon has missed its date this year with granary states of Punjab and Haryana.
Overall inflation, which has been in double digits for the last five months, was 10.55 per cent in June.
Students of Kolkata's Presidency College on Saturday hurled eggs and tomatoes at Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to protest price rise while he was leaving a seminar, but missed their target.Eyewitnesses said that student demonstrators belonging to the Students Federation of India, affiliated to the Communist Party of India - Marxist, threw eggs and tomatoes and waved black flags at Ahluwalia as he was leaving a UGC-sponsored national seminar.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, had stood at 7.47 per cent in December 2011.
With a view to find a long term alternative to scarce petroleum products, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Concerned over sluggish growth and poor investment climate, Assocham President Rajkumar Dhoot met Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Thursday and demanded the controversial tax proposal GAAR be put in 'cold storage'.
Planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday said the government should consider general lowering of duty rates across sectors to avoid creating arbitrage under free trade agreements.
Differing with International Monetary Fund's growth forecast of 4.9 per cent for India during 2012, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said it has a statistical problem.
Those who have been following developments in the past few years know that Wal-Mart alone must have spent millions of dollars in India for lobbying with our government to open up retail sector for FDI.
Deficient monsoon is likely to pull down the economic growth in the current fiscal to about six per cent, from 6.5 per cent a year ago, the Planning Commission said on Friday.
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