Air reforms missing from Cabinet radar

The much-anticipated Civil Aviation policy may have to wait until the next government takes over since the proposal for approval is missing ...

The much-anticipated Civil Aviation policy may have to wait until the next government takes over since the proposal for approval is missing from the agenda listed for the Cabinet meeting tomorrow.

According to sources, tomorrow’s meeting could be the last of the Vajpayee government.

The caretaker government, after the Lok Sabha is dissolved on February 6, does not have the mandate to take policy decisions, they said.

Story continues below this ad

Though there was an immense urgency from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, it could not send the proposal to the Cabinet Secretariat until today for distribution to the ministers ahead of the meeting.

The attitude of the Cabinet Secretariat, responsible for piloting such proposals, has also been very dissuading, said a Civil Aviation ministry official. It returned back a similar policy proposal of opening new airports with verbal instructions that it be taken up when the new government takes charge.

The secretariat’s position can be gauged from the list of issues slated for tomorrow. The only worthwhile issue is allowing government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation to raise money through equity dilution upto 24 per cent. The initial public offer of the power utility is to help raise money for its ongoing and new projects.

None of the other proposals has policy implication—and has been either announced before or approved in some form or the other.

Story continues below this ad

In the routine business are seperate anti-terrorism pacts with Armenia, South Korea and Thailand, and approval for providing financial and technical assistance to Afghanistan in building the 219-km Delaram-Zaranj road.

Proposals which have already been announced are handing over a Defence land at Dwarka to DDA for building a flyover and raising the scholarship for students belonging to Scheduled Tribes community similar to the one that was approved by the Cabinet for Scheduled Castes.