It will also be new Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra's first GST Council meeting. He will take charge after the incumbent Tarun Bajaj retires on November 30.
Never before has the need for creating an ambience for economic policy reforms been as critical as it is now, points out A K Bhattacharya.
Home Minister P Chidambaram has taken a major share of the pie of the Empowered Group of Ministers and Group of Ministers after the exit of Pranab Mukherjee.
The Ratnagiri Gas and Power Project, earlier known as the Dabhol project, will be dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coming year, chairman of the Empowered Group of Ministers said.
The Congress leader is also being probed by ED in two separate money-laundering cases of Aircel-Maxis and INX Media.
The ministry had sent a draft proposal for the consideration of the Empowered Group of Ministers to price all domestically produced natural gas -- be of state-run ONGC or private sector Reliance Industries - as per the formula suggested by the Rangarajan Committee.
The EGoM meeting, attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Food Minister K V Thomas among others, reviewed the situation in drought-hit states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Not only does there appear to be no meeting ground on the issue of a pricing formula proposed by the committee, the petroleum ministry wants another committee headed by Vijay Kelkar to look into the other major recommendation of moving to the revenue sharing model in exploration and production.
The finance ministry has rejected the formula and, instead, suggested an alternative that takes into account well-head prices of suppliers in Qatar, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia.
Says tradability will ensure greater economic efficiency & higher revenues for the government.
Power plants, involving investments of Rs 100,000 crore, facing closure.
The EGoM headed by Defence Minister A K Antony was scheduled to meet on Tuesday to consider abolishing the priority ranking in natural gas allocation so that fuel currently consumed by urea plants can also be diverted to fuel-starved power plants.
A high-powered ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday"tentatively resolved" all issues concerning a proposal to levy one-time fee on existing telecom operators, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said.
An Empowered Group of Ministers on drought headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday approved Rs 1,207-crore relief package to Maharashtra. "Rs 1,207 crore drought relief package has been approved for Maharashtra," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who is also a member of the EGoM, told PTI after the meeting of the minister.
They will take call on the number of telecom circles in which spectrum to be auctioned.
Home Minister P Chidambaram was on Friday appointed the head of the Empowered Group of Ministers on spectrum auction that was reconstituted after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar declined the job.
Official sources said Chidambaram's name tops the list of ministers who will be part of the EGoM from whose chairmanship Pawar recused earlier this week citing attempts to drag him into controversies.
Telecom Commission has recommended that existing mobile operators vacate airwaves in the 900 MHz band at the time of renewal of licences in 2014 -- a move that GSM players say would cost them over Rs 66,000 crore (Rs 660 billion) in replacing infrastructure.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia supports operators' plea. He tells the finance minister that existing players should not be charged for the remaining licence period.
It expects Rs 39,895 crore from it.
The base price would be made public only after the close of market hours on Thursday.
The high-powered panel, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, which was to discuss the roadmap for auction of unsold GSM spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka, has been deferred twice last month.
According to sources, as per the new schedule given by the agency which will operate the auction process, the bidding for the airwaves can be started only by early November.
The government, which had set a reserve price of Rs 14,000 crore for pan-India spectrum broadly drawing from the basis used by Comptroller and Auditor General in calculating the loss in the previous sale in 2008, managed a meagre Rs 9,407.64 crore (Rs 94.07 billion) in the auction that lasted barely two days.
An Empowered Group of Ministers on drought headed by Sharad Pawar on Friday sanctioned Rs 480 crore as immediate relief to Gujarat for rural drinking water and also announced increase of man days under MGNREGA from 100 to 150 per person.
The government on Friday said it would be able to meet the budgeted target of earning Rs 40,000 crore from the telecom sector this financial year, even as the response to the recently concluded auction of 1,800-MHz band spectrum was lukewarm.
As of now, monsoon rains are deficient by 21 per cent across India, affecting sowing of kharif crops. Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and West Rajasthan have been the worst-hit regions this year.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar will head the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on the effective management of issues related to drought.
Government will offload 9.5 per cent of its ownership.
The meeting of the EGoM, the first after Pranab Mukherjee resigned as the Finance Minister to contest Presidential election, was to decide on auction of telecom spectrum.
Migration option scrapped for incumbent telecom operators; EGoM meets under Pawar today.
Telecom Commission says refarm all spectrum in 900-MHz band to 1,800-MHz band operators.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the two big state-controlled telecom companies, have written to the government asking that it bear the entire cost of the additional spectrum assigned to the two giants.
An Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will seek legal opinion from Attorney General on its decision to charge around Rs 27,000 crore one-time spectrum fee from existing telecom operators.
In a move that could hold a flicker of hope for telecom operators, who have been opposing the high base price for the auction of 2G spectrum, the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) has quietly modified the key objective of the auction. The text of the objective has been tweaked from "revenue maximisation" to "maximising revenue but within set parameters" determined by the government.
The government takes pragmatic steps on telecom.
The second round of spectrum auction will begin in March after the Cabinet decides on reducing reserve price of 800 MHz band, used for offering CDMA-based mobile services.
Monsoon, the life-line of Indian agriculture, has been deficient by 13 per cent so far, affecting the sowing of kharif crops, particularly coarse cereals and pulses.
After poor response to last month's 2G spectrum sale, a ministerial panel on telecom on Friday decided to lower the base price by 30 per cent for radiowaves in 1800 Mhz band in four circles, which attracted no bidders, for fresh auction this fiscal.
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