This will be followed by another meeting on Thursday to take stock of the steel sector. The government has called a round table conference of captains of industry and financial institutions to firm up an action plan for rejuvenating the industry. The meeting, convened by the steel ministry, will be attended by the captains of industry in the public and private sector and representatives of the finance ministry.

On the non-fiscal side, the package for infrastructure sector will aim at removing the bottlenecks hampering the growth of the infrastructure industry. The initiatives will also include creating proper enabling environment and making available long-term finances for the projects with larger gestation periods.

Several ministries have already submitted the set of steps to be undertaken by the government for giving a big boost to the infrastructure sector. On top agenda, sources said, was the speedy implementation of the ambitious east-west and north-south corridors project announced by prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as head of the earlier government.

On the agenda of the round table conference on steel sector, will be the fiscal incentives like rationalisation of the customs duty for steel products and imposition of anti-dumping duties on certain items the import of which are adversely hitting the industry. In addition, the government is also working on a specific package for the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). The steel ministry, as advised by the finance ministry, will soon be coming out with a fresh set of steps for resuscitating the public sector steel giant.

The government is also contemplating an integrated transport policy with sole purpose for accelerating the development of road network in the country. A dedicate road fund is proposed to be set up for funding the sector.

For the development of ports, the focus will be to improve the efficiency of the existing ports, remove the bottlenecks in way of the corporatisation of major ports and lure private participation in setting up of new ports.

In case of civil aviation, a new policy is on the cards to cater to the needs of the 21st century aviation and tourism. This will be in addition to the efforts for modernisation of the airports through private sector participation. The privatisation, sources said, was proposed to be implemented in a time-bound manner.

The reform package for the power sector will include time-bound corporatisation of the state electricity boards. On agenda is privatisation of the transmission and distribution of power. Tariff reforms is proposed to be put in place and generation, transmission and distribution of electricity will be unbundled and made separate activities. More states wil be encouraged to set up state electricity regulatory commissions.

For the railways, the government is proposing to set up a railways reforms commission which shall evolve strategy for resource mobilisation, rationalisation of tariff and prioritise the project portfolio.