Prime Minister Dr manmohan singh swung into action immediately after taking over the charge of the finance ministry and cracked his whip. Dr Singh seems to be in a great hurry and meeting all top officials of the ministry and stake-holders connected with the economy directly.
According to an official spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Office Pankaj Pachauri, the Prime Minister will be issuing certain directions after assessing the situation with regard to work allocation and policy matters shortly.
It is learnt that the first to call on him late last evening was his old-time buddy and Deputy chairman of the planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Today noon, he met his Economic Adviser Dr C Rangarajan. In the evening he met all top officials of the Finance Ministry – R S Gujral, R Gopalan, Sumit Bose and others.
Dr Manmohan Singh shall be interacting with Governor of Reserve Bank
D Subba Rao and his deputies tomorrow. He also plans to visit North Block next week to the office of Finance Minister to interact with other officials.
He will meet the two ministers of state- Namo Narain Meena and S S palannimanickam on Friday.
Though there are several challenges the country is facing on the economic front, the Prime Minister may have to focus on some immediate steps. If reports are to be believed, the reserve bank of India is likely to clamp down on gold coin imports and subsequent sales by banks, amid rising bullion imports to the tune of more than 60 billion dollars (Rs 3 lakh crores). This has added pressure to the current account deficit and weakening the rupee. The Banking Regulation Act does not allow banks to trade in commodities and they play the role of a financial intermediary. But former FM Pranab Mukherjee did not take any steps to contain this avoidable import.
This norm was relaxed in the pre-2008 era when the country saw a dollar influx that resulted in a sharp appreciation of the rupee. To sterilise dollar inflows, banks were allowed to sell gold, as they imported the yellow metal. The measure was temporary. But it became permanent without any steps.
On the agenda is fiscal consolidation by checking expenditure and finding non-intrusive revenue sources, reinstating investors' confidence and ending nervousness over taxes.
Also on agenda is speeding up disinvestment and taking a call on other non-core assets. The Prime Minister will also preside over the EGoM and finalise pricing of spectrum allocation. Another challenge is to boost the sliding GDP, impaired IIP and check continuous Inflation, capital market reforms.
