The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared a Rs.648-crore project for two-laning of a national highway in Rae Bareli, falling under the constituency of Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Of the R648 crore, R78.62 crore has been earmarked for land acquisition, resettlement, rehabilitation and pre-construction, while R569.36 crore will be for construction.
The Cabinet also approved the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme under which the government will provide up to R10,000 crore in benefits to the industry over the next five years for promoting production of electronic products and components in India.
According to an agency report, the Cabinet also cleared setting up of an institutional mechanism to oversee contract performance of projects undertaken in the public-private partnership mode. ??The Institutional Mechanism for Monitoring of PPP Projects, cleared by the Cabinet, will have two-tier system? Projects Monitoring Unit (PMU) and Performance Review Unit (PRU),?? said a PTI report even though there was no official communication issued by the Press Information Bureau on Thursday.
The much-awaited clearance to divestment to 10.82% government stake in SAIL could not be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) as steel minister Beni Prasad Verma was away on an official tour. Verma is in Tokyo to attend an agreement signing event between SAIL and Japan?s Kobe Steel. The CCEA did not think it to be prudent to take a call on the matter, official sources said.
The Cabinet also deferred consideration of the much-awaited Forward Contract Regulation Act (Amendment) Bill that aims to give more powers to commodity markets regulator FMC.
