How To Avoid A Stalemate

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p><p align="justify"><span class='dropthecap'>D</span>espite a special committee to remove bottlenecks for infrastructure development, the progress in sectors such as roads, ports, power, airports during the previous government's tenure was very slow. In fact, the creation of Committee on Infrastructure (CoI),  chaired by the Prime Minister himself, was one of the first tasks Manmohan Singh undertook in 2004.<br /><br />However, this time round, under UPA II, the CoI has been disbanded, and a new cabinet committee on infrastructure (CCI) — on the lines of cabinet committee on political affairs, on security — has been created. Over the past few weeks, this cabinet committee, with the PM as the head along with other concerned ministers, has taken some important decisions and is now expected to also clear the much-awaited amendments to the model concession agreement for highways.<br /><br />What was the need for CCI? First, under the previous setup, policy decisions cleared by CoI had to be put up before the cabinet committee on economic affairs or the cabinet. This turned out to be a long-drawn affair. Second, many ministries perceived the Planning Commission to be the driver of some of these policy decisions on infrastructure that should have ideally been taken by the concerned ministries. This led to protracted discussions on policy matters with some key ministries even questioning the Planning Commission's role. With a CCI in place, though the Planning Commission will have a say on policy matters, there will be no stalemate as the CCI will have the final word.</p> <script type="text/javascript"> var intro = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#commenth4').text()) var page = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#storyPage').text()) if (page.indexOf(intro) < 0) { jQuery('#commenth4').attr('style', 'display:block;') } </script> (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 28-09-2009)