He said supply side constraints would be removed to achieve price stability and existing food stocks would be used to moderate prices. Chidambaram said that imports would be increased to deal with shortages. He said that his Ministry would work with the Reserve Bank of India to moderate inflation in medium term and take action to ease interest burden on consumers.
The Finance Minister said taxation in IT sector would be reviewed.

Stressing the need to focus on large projects as well as infrastructure projects, the Minister said an Investment-Tracking System for projects with an outlay of a thousand crore or more had been put in place. Proposals pending with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) will be processed and decisions will be taken expeditiously.

The Government intends to raise the level of investment to 30 per cent of Gross Domestic Product and fine-tune policies and procedures to facilitate capital flows, Chidambaram added. He sought support of political parties for the passage of Bills tabled by his Ministry in the House and announced to work with manufacturers and exporters to boost growth. For this he said, the Government would implement appropriate measures, apart from seeking expert advice on fiscal consolidation.

Chidambaram said a roadmap to boost investments and economy by fine-tuning policies would be put in place soon. He said steps would be taken to attract more people to invest in mutual funds, insurance policies and others.
Expressing concern over the weak south west monsoon, the Finance Minister said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gauruntee Act (MGNREGA) and other schemes would be converged to meet the challenge of drought.

The Centre has decided to establish an Investment Tracking System to ensure speedy implementation of major investment projects in the country. As part of the initiative, a format for monitoring such projects in private sector and under public-private partnership (PPP) has been developed and is available at the website of the Department of Financial Services in the Ministry of Finance. The website is www.financialservices.gov.in.


According to an official release, promoters of projects in the private sector and under the PPP mode, where the proposed investment is 1000 crore rupees and above, can provide details of their projects along with reasons behind(cause) delay, if any, to the web address - key.projects@sbicaps.com. The information may also be updated on a monthly basis. The department is separately working on developing a web based system for the monitoring of such projects which will enable the stakeholders in updating the status on a regular basis.

The government set up a high-level board to boost the manufacturing sector. The panel will be headed by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma. The decision to set up the board comes within days of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh set up the Investment Tracking System to give a push to mega projects of over 1,000 crore rupees in the backdrop of economic growth sliding to nine-year low of 6.5 per cent in 2011-12.

The 13-member Manufacturing Industry promotion Board (MIPB), would periodically review the overall situation of the manufacturing sector, which contracted to 0.3 per cent during the quarter ending March 31, from 7.3 per cent in the corresponding period of 2010-11.The MIPB, set up to give a big push to operationalise the National manufacturing Policy ,NMP, would also coordinate among central ministries and state governments.

The government has formed three more panels for the proper implementation of the NMP. The policy seeks to raise share of the manufacturing sector in the GDP to 25 per cent from the present 15-16 per cent in the next decade.

nvestment Tracking System to ensure speedy implementation of major investment projects being delayed for a variety of reasons.

This issue had come up in the last meeting of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry held in December in which the Prime Minister had stated that major projects will be specially tracked to take them forward on a fast track in order to provide a fresh impetus to the economy.

This was in the context of delays faced by projects on multiple fronts - security clearances, environmental clearances, other clearances and land related matters.

Our correspondent reports, in this Investment Tracking System , National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council shall track all Public Sector projects with an investment of 1000 crore rupees and above.

The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council shall submit a quarterly statement of all projects monitored and any issues identified that need resolution, either systemically or individually. 

In this system, the Department of Financial Services shall monitor projects with an investment of 1000 crore rupees and above in the private sector. The department would use data available with the banking sector for this purpose.