Finance minister P Chidambaram will meet senior officials of key infrastructure ministries such as coal, power, railways and roads on Friday to resolve the delay in 191 major private sector projects getting bank credit.
He will take stock of the list of projects compiled by the department of financial services (DFS) where bank loans have been approved but disbursement has not taken place. Sources said that DFS has identified 191 projects, out of which 109 projects are pending for approval and 82 have got the final nod. The minister will examine whether regulatory or other reasons have led to the delay in financing these projects. This is the first meeting where DFS will be presenting the list of projects from the private sector affected by delays in funding.
Friday’s meeting is a follow up of a series of meetings the finance ministry has been holding at various levels to iron out the differences and regulatory hurdles blocking investments in the infrastructure sector. In the last few meetings, various ministries have cited uncertainty over environment ministry’s policies and procedural issues as key reasons for delays in projects in sectors such as coal, power, railways, roads and mines.
The meeting on Friday will also be attended by environment and forest ministry.
In an inter-ministerial meeting with the infrastructure ministries chaired by DEA secretary Arvind Mayaram in the last week of August, big projects of shipping, mining and coal sector were discussed. Ministries have been asked to compile a list of big projects stuck in their individual sectors due to regulatory or financing issues.
After taking charge, Chidambaram had said that he intended to identify the problems that impede higher production in coal, mining, petroleum, power and the slow progress in road transport, railway and port sector projects.
In July, the government had set up an investment tracking system for projects with an investment of R1000 crore and above. This is to periodically monitor implementation of projects. The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) is mandated to track all Public Sector Undertaking Projects with an investment of R1,000 crore and above and the DFS, finance ministry, is mandated to monitor projects with an investment of R1,000 crore and above in the private sector.
The DFS had sought data from banks and promoters on the bottlenecks causing delay.
The ministry will set up a web tracking system by September end, wherein financial institutions, banks and promoters can provide details of projects and related issues.