·
National
Investment Board, a
proposal made by the Finance Minister P.Chidambaram is widely approved by the
corporate sectors(marketing, industry and infrastructure)
·
Why
this NIB?
o
For any project to be approved by the
govt. of India is a huge task.
o
The project has to be approved by
various govt. departments/ministries for clearance.
§ For
example, a thermal power project in order to be cleared nearly 17ministries
have to approve it through 65 clearances. This is a rigid task which takes more
time to approve the project.
o
The clearances involve various approvals
in the same ministry.
§ For
example, the Environment ministry involves clearances/approvals from
environment dept. and forest dept. too.
o
So it consumes more time for the project
to be cleared and the projects are prone to delay which is a serious matter for
the development/growth of the country.
o
So some industries asked for the
constitution of a body that gives the approvals in a less span of time with due
considerations and constraints. So far, there have been four models discussed:
first, a Fast Tracking Board under Cabinet Secretary. Second, an Infrastructure
Ministry. Third, a Foreign Investment Promotion Board(FIPB) and lastly, a
high-powered institution like National Development Council(NDC) that also
includes even the presence of Chief Ministers in the clearance and approval of
the projects. Finally, the Govt. has decided to constitute an NIB which is a
combination of both Fast-Tracking Board and FIPB.
o
NIB is obligated to reduce the time consumed
for the clearances and there by speed up the process of the approval of the
projects.
·
How
NIB is constituted?
o
The NIB is chaired by the Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and an empowered standing committee of Cabinet Secretary. The Board
also includes key ministries like Finance and Law & Justice as its members.
·
What
does NIB do?
o
NIB handles the projects of above
Rs.1000Cr. and it initially focuses on the projects that are run for a long
time like roads and petroleum etc.,
o
The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA)
of Secretariat identifies such projects and assigns them to the NIB.
o
It also deals with the projects that are
delayed for a long time and takes an appropriate decision in the approval of
the projects. (If the deadlines for the particular ministry are crossed and
still it is unable to take a clear statement about the clearance of the project
in that respective dept. then the ultimate decision is left to NIB)
o
NIB meetings are held at least once in a
month.
·
What
are the drawbacks in the constitution of the Board?
o
The autonomous decision for the concerned
ministry will be lost if the project clearance deadline is not met. (The reason
is that there is lack of the staff and it takes more time to clear as it
considers various issues of the subject).
o
There may be lack of consensus between
the ministries.
No comments:
Post a Comment