Eye on polls, FM to review flagship plans

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s this month’s planner includes a nationwide tour to meet the chief ministers of states and heads of PSBs and state-run financial institutions, to personally access the operation of flagship schemes in states and study the functioning of the banking system and their success in promoting financial inclusion.

The finance minister's tour will cover banking networks zone-wise, with the first visit to north zone in New Delhi on November 16 followed by the south zone meeting in Bangalore on November 20, official sources told FE. The dates for meetings with other zones are being worked out. The government’s strategy here is to give a further thrust to its ‘aam aadmi’-oriented flagship schemes as well as employment generation and financial inclusion programmes in banking, pension and insurance sectors, in addition to expediting big-ticket infrastructure projects.

These meetings will explore ways to expedite pending projects in sectors such as power, coal, petroleum, natural gas and other infrastructure sectors, the sources said.

Projects—mostly over Rs.1,000-1,500 crore and totalling around R1.5 lakh crore—are pending mainly on account of lack of environmental clearances. Many projects have also been delayed as developers have been finding it difficult to get the required funds from banks and FIs due to reasons ranging from problems in getting environmental/forest clearances to land acquisition-related issues.

The focus of these

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