FM meets bankers, India Inc; keen on removing roadblocks

Finance Minister P Chidambaram met with bankers and industry leaders in Mumbai on Monday, to take stock of the infrastructure projects which are being stalled. They identified 215 existing projects which are being stalled and 126 new projects which are not moving forward mainly because of the delay in getting approvals for land acquisition and fuel linkage supply reports CNBC-TV18 Gopika Gopakumar.

The FM also discussed specific projects with lead industry leaders and the reasons behind why these projects were getting stuck. He assured the industry of taking steps to get the projects moving.

Both bankers and corporate India welcomed this meeting and on the other hand corporate India said that they are seeking pooling of coal prices going forward for which FM assured that the government is moving fast on that.

Also Read: Hoping stalled projects will revive on policy tweaks: NHAI

Chidambaram said, “The agenda was to identify the projects that have been stalled. We have identified 215 projects, which for one reason or other have stalled. We have also identified another 126 projects, which are new projects for which banks have sanctioned loans but they have not moved forward.”

After the meeting, Raj Kumar Goyal, Executive Director, Central Bank, said, “FM heard bankers’ views and he has assured that he will definitely talk to the concerned departments. Many of the issues are from environment and forest department, and the coal linkages and gas linkages. He has assured to look into all these issues and to take up the matter with the concerned departments.”

”The FM has taken pains to look into the problems of the infrastructure companies,” said Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Zee Group.

This is the first round of meeting which FM had with industry leaders and bankers in Mumbai. From here on he will move to Chennai where he will meet the business leaders from the southern zone. After Chennai, he will move to east and then finally to the northern region. Later he will sit with different ministries to clear the bottlenecks with regards to infrastructure projects.