A high-level committee headed by former finance secretary Ashok Chawla, at its first meeting here on Tuesday, stressed on the need for a transparent centralised database of all the natural resources including spectrum, petroleum, natural gas and coal, which are handled directly by the Central government. Cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar constituted the committee following an instruction from the Group of Ministers (GoM) on corruption headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
According to an official statement issued by Cabinet secretariat, the database should be accessible to all government departments for expediting clearances of projects without overlapping and delay.
“It was also highlighted in the meeting that this sort of database shall ensure co-ordination amongst different ministries/departments and shall obviate many of the legal disputes pending in various courts of law,” it added.
While constituting the committee, it has been decided that the panel will restrict itself to only those natural resources, which are not man-made and are under the direct control of Central government or any of its agencies.
“These will include land, water, minerals (including petroleum products like oil and gas) and radio frequency (spectrum). The committee will consider multiple issues such as public welfare, revenue maximisation, sectoral precedents etc,” the statement said, adding that the policies, therefore, would be tailored differently, depending upon the context of each sector.
The committee also decided to document the different approaches being followed in each sector and would devise a policy matrix to suggest the changes required in the extant methodology being pursued in different central ministries/departments/agencies.
Official sources said, Mr Chawla stressed upon the members to immediately provide complete information with regard to their ministries/departments, as the committee is required to submit its report within a time frame of four weeks.
Besides Mr Chawla other members of the committee include the secretaries to the ministries/departments like petroleum & natural gas, coal, environment and forest, telecommunication, water resources, land resources.
The other members are additional secretary to the department of expenditure, representative of planning commission and director-general (DG) of CII and Ficci.
Joint secretary in the cabinet secretariat Govind Mohan will act as member secretary of the committee.