Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday to discuss the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on the Food Security Bill.
"The performance of the public part of the (PPP) project should be subject to proper scrutiny but obviously where the private sector (is given) flexibility ... you cannot subject that to CAG scrutiny," Montek Singh, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman said when asked whether there is case for CAG scrutiny of PPP projects.
The industrial growth number for the month of December has been revised upward to 2.53 per cent from the provisional number of 1.6 per cent released earlier.
Defending the government's decision to open up the multi-brand retail sector to foreign investment, Plan panel deputy chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Friday said it would help farmers as well as consumers.
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.
The Plan panel on Wednesday said the government's refusal to accord environment clearance to Vedanta's proposed $1.7 billion aluminium project in Orissa would not tarnish India's image as an investment friendly destination.
"This year, at the Planning Commission, we expect growth rate will be around 8 per cent. We are not expecting 9 per cent in the year 2011-12," Ahluwalia said while speaking at the convocation ceremony at Vijna Jyothy Institute of Management.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, had stood at 7.47 per cent in December 2011.
Food inflation rose to 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, because of rise in prices of food items like onion, milk and meat.
Planning Commission's Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia strongly favours need for a special package and help for poor Bihar in place of special category state status repeatedly demanded by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
One of the names proposed by the dailies is India's Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, who has been charged with a criminal sex act and is under arrest in the United States, has resigned from his position, leaving the global financial body to hunt for a new chief.
Ahluwalia said India is also interested in stepping up cooperation with China on railways development.
Mukherjee said uncertainty was still there on oil prices front due to unrest in West Asia and North Africa.
The government last month revised the growth forecast for the current fiscal downward to 7.5 per cent on domestic concerns like high inflation and slowing industrial output, besides a global slowdown.
Planning Commission on Tuesday endorsed RBI's hawkish policy of hiking key rates by half a percentage point saying this would contain inflation.
A Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukhejree is likely to meet on Monday to vet London-listed mining group Vedanta Resources' $ 9.6 billion acquisition of Cairn India.
International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Thursday said he favoured new heads of the World Bank and the Fund to be from countries other than Europe and the United States.
The reaction from Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia comes a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested LIC Housing Finance CEO Ramachandran Nair and seven other senior bankers on charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy.
According to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, more than the anticipated growth in the farm sector will make up for the shortfall in the industrial output.
Montek also said he did not consider the fall of about two per cent or so in Asian markets, including India this morning, as severe.
Former managing director of McKinsey & Co, Rajat Gupta, has stepped down as chairperson of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Gupta's resignation comes days before the PHFI executive was to discuss his exit.
Conceding that the fiscal deficit could exceed the targeted 4.6 per cent of GDP for 2011-12 by up to one percentage point, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said such a situation need not be a matter of concern.
"I don't think that it is government's view that the present inflation cannot be brought under control without FDI in multi-brand retail. We can bring inflation under control," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
Power distribution companies in the country are estimated to have incurred a staggering loss of about Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion) in the last fiscal and the amount is expected to be as much as Rs 1,16,000 crore (Rs 1,160 billion) by 2014-15.
Industrialist Anil Ambani on Wednesday met Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who is reportedly in the reckoning for the post of Finance Minister in the new UPA government.
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.
Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, in an impromptu chat with reporters, sided with Sebi, while Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia cited the spat to make a case for setting up a Financial Development and Stability Council (FSDC).
Although India's private health insurance industry's business volumes have grown by over 35 per cent a year in the last few years, a staggering 85 per cent of the population remains uninsured, according to industry estimates.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday expressed concerns over rising crude prices which soared to two-year high of $ 102 a barrel in Asian markets.
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.
Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a worker is entitled to Rs 100 per day for minimum of 100 days in a year.
In an interview with Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN channel's Devil's Advocate programme, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia explains why he faults the controversial report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on 2G telecom spectrum allocation. Edited excerpts:
It has emerged that a senior US government functionary offered to help India garner greater funding from the World Bank in return for protecting Dow Chemicals from possible legal fallout from the gas tragedy.
At the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, organised by the government ostensibly to celebrate the country's connection with the 27-million-strong Indian diaspora living in 150 countries, Mr Ahluwalia said last Sunday that India was reaching out to NRIs not for their money, but because it valued the long, socio-cultural footprint all Indians living in India and abroad shared.
The data further revealed that GDP growth rate was 9.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2009-10 and 8.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2010-11.
"Yes it is true that milk and vegetable prices are high. You know some of this is a reflection of economic prosperity and purchasing power," Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
The committee is expected to submit its report soon.
"In China's 12th Plan, exports do not hold the same place. Besides, the Chinese will be vacating the lower end of value spectrum like textiles and leather...So who will replace them? Are we going to step in or will it be Vietnam or Turkey or Indonesia," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA and Left Parties, including the CPI-M and CPI, have organised a 'Bharat Bandh' on Monday to protest against rising inflation and the hike in prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas.
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