The coming week may not be particularly action-packed as far as policymaking is concerned, courtesy the ongoing Puja festivities culminating in the Dussehra (Vijayadashami) public holiday on Wednesday. That practically leaves Thursday and Friday for the Government to do business, before the weekend Id-ul-Zuha (Bakrid) celebrations.

But amidst this overall holiday atmosphere, one can still expect a couple of major policy decisions this week, especially on Thursday, when the Union Cabinet is scheduled to meet. One agenda item that might be taken up is the proposal for constituting a National Investment Board (NIB) amidst opposition primarily from the Environment and Tribal Affairs ministries.

NIB issues

The proposed NIB — to be set up either in the Prime Minister’s Office or the Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry — is meant to monitor projects involving an investment of more than Rs 1,000 crore and track any delays on account of pending regulatory or administrative approvals/clearances from the ministries concerned.

In the existing administrative set-up, this is normal. A power project, for instance, may require coal linkage to be granted by the Coal Ministry. This linkage, in turn, is subject to environment clearance by the Environment Ministry. Even if that comes through, forest clearance from the Department of Forests would be required.

It is this system of sequential approvals from the respective ministries/departments, drawing authority from the Transaction of Business Rules, 1961, that the NIB is supposed to replace. The NIB would prescribe time limits, in consultation with the ministries concerned, for granting or refusing the required statutory approvals.

The ministries would be expected to adhere to these time schedules, failing which the authority of the particular department (as per the Transaction of Business Rules) would stand transferred to the NIB.

Needless to say, the concerned ministries are not going to take this lightly. One has to see whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram are able to stand their ground.

Telecom matters

The other big policy announcements pertain to telecom, with the Cabinet most likely to approve a one-time levy on mobile operators for the ‘excess’ spectrum (more than 4.4 MHz) held by them. This levy is to be collected for the remaining period of their existing licences. But in the case of spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz, it would be imposed with effect from the July 2008. The levy, in turn, would be benchmarked to the market price of 2G spectrum in next month’s auctions.

The one-time levy was cleared last week by an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM). The EGOM is expected to meet again this week to look into the ‘re-farming’ of the prized 900 MHz spectrum held by old incumbent operators. The Telecom Department wants these operators to vacate this frequency band once their existing licences expire and offer the same for auctions to allow other operators (currently using the less efficient 1800 MHz airwaves) a chance to offer services. In case the old incumbents are not able to get the 900 MHz after their licences expire, they would be given the option to migrate to the 1800 MHz spectrum.

The coming week could see a minor Cabinet reshuffle, with the names of Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi and Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar doing the rounds. The latter is expected to fill the gap created by the demise of the former Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. Also, there are quite a few existing ministers ‘overburdened’ with additional portfolios (Textiles by Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Corporate Affairs by Power Minister Veerappa Moily, Railways by Road Transport Minister C.P. Joshi, etc). Besides, there are vacancies from the exit of Trinamool Congress from the ruling coalition. Their place is going to be taken by Congress leaders from West Bengal, including Deepa Dasmunshi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

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