Centre acts on El Nino

New Delhi: With BJP led NDA government set to take office from next week, bureaucrats are busy preparing presentations on key economic issues from inflation to tax reforms which are expected to be on the top of the agenda of new government.

A meeting called by the cabinet secretary Ajit Seth of different departments and ministries took stock of the price situation and the government’s preparedness to deal with any possible failure of monsoon. It  discussed availability of foodgrains in case there is an El Nino effect on the monsoon.

The officials also discussed various hurdles in bringing new investment including land acquisition and timely approval of mega projects. “This is a regular meeting which happens periodically on prices. It is a regular thing, nothing new. Every one month it happens. We just gave our inputs,” said finance secretary Arvind Mayaram.

Bringing down the persistent high inflation is expected to be a priority of the new government. In finance ministry Mr Mayaram reviewed the capital expenditure plans of 13 big PSUs, including ONGC, SAIL and BHEL, so that proposals to kick start the investment cycle could be placed before the new minister for further action soon.

Finance ministry will have a separate review of capex expenditure plans of power and telecom sector PSUs before May 26. Outgoing finance minister P. Chidambaram in the past had also asked PSUs to increase their investments or give higher dividends.  Last year PSU achieved a capex expenditure of 2.48 lakh crore.

Government is likely to push them for higher investments in the current fiscal. Mr Mayaram will also be discussing the progress on the proposed Direct Taxes Code and the Goods and Services Tax with the officials of  revenue department on Thursday. BJP government is expected to push for tax rationalisation in an attempt to boost the growth.