Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM chairs meeting to discuss recommendations of the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources

The Prime Minister today convened a meeting of Ministers and Senior Officials to examine the Report of the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources, commonly known as the Ashok Chawla Committee. The meeting was attended by the Finance Minister, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission and the Ministers of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Urban Development, Human Resource Development, Water Resources and Coal and the MoS of Environment and Forests. The Principal Secretary and Secretaries of all the concerned Departments attended the Meeting. The Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs made a presentation on recommendations of the Committee.

The Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources was constituted to examine the approach to allocating natural resources such as land, coal, minerals, petroleum, natural gas, etc. The purpose was to obtain recommendations which would enhance transparency, effectiveness and sustainability in the allocation, pricing and utilization of natural resources through open, transparent and competitive mechanisms and to suggest changes in the legal, institutional and regulatory framework to implement the recommendations.

The recommendations of the Committee had been examined by the Group of Ministers on corruption headed by the Finance Minister and the GoM had accepted 69 of the 81 recommendations. 11 recommendations were to be examined further. 

At the end of the meeting it was decided that all the 69 agreed recommendations would be pursued for implementation by individual Ministries in a timely manner. Detailed timelines will be finalized.