Sinha back to business

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 29. Back after his medical treatment in the United States, the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, has started looking into the problem areas in the economy.

Faced with a slowdown in the economy, the Finance Minister has apparently hit upon faster investment to pep up the low demand in the market which is leading towards industrial recession. Today, Mr. Sinha reviewed the implementation of projects under the Ministries of Power, Railways, Road Transport and Highways and the National Highway Authority of India. Substantial funds are said to be at the disposal of these Ministries which have not yet started spending them.

Expressing concern over the slow pace of implementation of the projects, Mr. Sinha has suggested laying down of clearly-defined milestones for implementation of these projects since these also have a huge potential for employment generation.

During the review today, it was found that 868 km of the Golden Quadrilateral road project have already been completed while contracts for another 2,501 km had been awarded and the balance contracts for 2,480 km would be awarded by July-August this year. Simultaneously, work on the east-west corridor has also been undertaken with contracts awarded for 562 km.

Mr. Sinha, however, asked the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to prepare a detailed funding plan for the remaining work. For these projects, out of the $ 1.6 billions envisaged from external sources such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, about $ 1.4 billions had already been approved and $ 240 millions was to be negotiated.

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Section  : National
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