Healthcare, tourism to be focus areas: Jaswant Singh
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 09 January 2003, 20:30 IST
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HYDERABAD: Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announced Thursday that healthcare, housing, social infrastructure, and tourism are key areas identified by the government, which would play a critical role in the development of India’s economy. Speaking at the valedictory session of the Ninth Partnership Summit at Hyderabad, the Finance Minister said that these areas deserved special development. Earlier the Finance Minister said that the issue of the privatization of Indian Airlines was likely to be resolved jointly with the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Similarly, the focus should be on what is good for India, and not just Air India. The Finance Minister also said that he expected to take to Cabinet tomorrow a proposal to set up a Serious Fraud Office. He also planned to make a series of announcements on economic issues every day from tomorrow till the first week of January. On manufacturing, the Minister spoke in detail about a possible solution to the woes of the steel industry. These would include debt-swapping and amortization. Singh ALSO said that the focus of the Kelkar Committee on tax reforms was not so much the suggested changes in tax rates but the focus on administrative reforms through the use of information technology. "For the first time, the relatively conservative finance ministry was considering outsourcing a revenue function." The Finance Minister also commended the Naresh Chandra Committee Report on Corporate Governance. In this context, he said that it was commendable that the economy had done well, despite facing three simultaneous and daunting challenges: the drought, the global downturn, and geo-political uncertainties. He also complimented Parliament for passing thirteen major economic laws. This had entailed 26 sessions (in both House) over 22 days. This reinforced his conviction, that when the occasion rose, we could deliver. Earlier, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu called for more reforms, especially labor reforms and reforms in civil aviation that would facilitate greater connectivity between Hyderabad and foreign destinations. He cited the successful holding of this year’s Partnership Summit was an excellent example of public-private partnership between CII and the State Government. He invited CII to continue to hold its next Partnership Summit in Hyderabad. This has been accepted, and the venue of the next Partnership Summit will be Hyderabad.

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