The committee, which will resolve last-minute hitches in the implementation of power projects, will have various secretaries from other ministeries including that of the ministry of finance, petroleum, coal, railways and power, as its members.

Kumaramangalam told The Financial Express that all the leading financial institutions in the country have also been asked to participate in this committee.

The minister said that after working out the details related with the constitution of this committee, the ministry of power has now sent it for the approval of the prime minister.

Kumaramangalam said that lot has been done on the policy front during 1998 and now he wants to focus his attention towards the speedyimplementation of power projects. During the current year, most of the power projects, despite being in the final stages, could not move due to last-minute problems with either other government departments or the financial institutions.

Even in case of fast-track projects, despite all clearances from the power ministry including the issue of counterguarantees, no progress was witnessed in these projects including the Hinduja's Vizag power project, the Ispat group promoted Bhadrawati power project or the ST-CMS's Neyveli power project.

This was due to problems at various levels in other related ministries such as coal, railways, defence or with the financial institutions. The crisis resolution group will address all such problems and will ensure that these projects are implemented on a `fast track mode'. This group will meet at least once a month to look into such cases, the minister added.

Following instructions from the PM's office, the power ministry has recently constituted four other task forceswhich have been assigned the role of monitoring and ensuring timely completion of power projects.

These task forces, unlike the inter-ministerial group, will have representations from within the power ministry, the PSUs under its ambit andits departments and will co-ordinate and resolve problems pointed out by the project promoters.

The minister disclosed that decks have been cleared for the 1080 mw Bhadrawati power project and a consensus has been reached between the promoters of this project and the technical committee of the defence ministry headed by A P J Abdul Kalam.

The two have agreed to come to terms over the explosives to be used for conducting the coal mining operations by the Central Coal India Company (Cicco), the captive coal mining company for the project.

Kumaramngalam said that Cicco will now carry out blasting operations at its coal mines, which are in close proximity to the Chandanpur Ordnance factory, under the supervision of this committee.