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Saturday, Jul 17, 2004

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Planning Commission meeting today

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, JULY 16. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is to preside over the first meeting of the full Planning Commission here tomorrow.

The meeting will start with the Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and seven other members taking oath of office and secrecy which will be administered by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Chairman of the Commission.

Six Cabinet Ministers have also been inducted into the Commission and will function as part-time members. While the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and the Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh, are from the Congress, the Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, the Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and Dayanidhi Maran of the DMK, represent some of the alliance partners of the Government.

The Minister of State for Planning, M.V. Rajshekaran, has also been made a part-time member.

The meeting is expected to dwell on the current economic situation, especially in the light of the below normal monsoon, and also identify policy interventions that would be required to implement the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the United Progressive Alliance.

The Deputy Chairman and other full-time members of the Commission have already started reviewing various sectors of the economy, including the energy sector, health and rural development.

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