Common Maximum Prominence, that146;s infrastructure

The National Common Minimum Programme came handy for Finance Minister P Chidambaram to signal big-ticket reforms in the infrastructure secto...

The National Common Minimum Programme came handy for Finance Minister P Chidambaram to signal big-ticket reforms in the infrastructure sector and undertake a comprehensive review of the current coal policy.

Coal and the mining sector are considered to be laggards for economic growth and have pulled down other industries. Coal blocks with a capacity of 20 billion tones would be deblocked for the power sector, the FM said.

Besides, the government would 8216;8216;amend8217;8217; the definition of captive consumption which would allow coal mining by producers with firm supply contracts with steel, cement and power companies8212;the three major consumers of coal.

For the power sector that is expected to have a record addition of 33,000 mw in the Xth Plan, the finance minister announced tax sops for the five ultra mega power projects which have a capacity of 4000 mw each, and has exempted them for payment of income tax under section 80 1 A of the IT Act till March 31, 2010.

A similar exemption has also been given to the development of industrial parks whereby developers can now claim tax waivers under this section upto March 31, 2009 as against March 31, 2006.

In fact, the fine print in the budget documents show that the UPA government has given a blanket extension of tax waivers under section 80 1 A for schemes being undertaken in the power sector to meet their target to deliver power for all by 2012.

ROADS: After announcing an outlay of Rs 500 crore for projects in the north east, the finance minister said that National Highway Authority of India NHAI would be restructured and made more effective by making it a multi-disciplinary body with the capacity to handle a large number of public-private partnership projects.

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PORTS: The FM said a deep draft port in West Bengal was being planned and that a detailed study would be carried out for this purpose. In terms of the projects being financed by the new infrastructure company IIFCL, Chidambaram said they had received proposals for three projects in Gujarat and a decision on the same would be taken by the end of the next fiscal.

Experts, however, point that investments infrastructure need to be measured through a proper statistic which is currently lacking. Vinayak Chatterjee of Feedback Ventures said the government needs to have a measure that reflects the addition made to the infrastructure stock.