The Planning Commission, entrusted with the task of including these priority measures into the draft Plan, is now on schedule with the revised draft ready to be placed before the Cabinet by July-end, and the National Development Council next month, according to official sources.

The priorities appear formidable: doubling food production to make the country "hunger-free" at the end of ten years, pulling up social infrastructure from its abyssmal morass, a country-wide water policy, accelerating the expansion of roads, ports, power, airports, telecommunications... the list is endless.

These thrust areas were highlighted by Vajpayee in his March 22 address to the nation soon after taking office. Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Jaswant Singh was giventhe task of coordinating the efforts of the administrative ministries concerned and the Finance Ministry.

Never mind that politically the BJP government is being buffeted by its capricious allies and demanding partners, making its very survival a day-to-day performance.

The government is planning for the long term, with the Planning Commission going about the job of translating the BJP's National Agenda for Governance into the new draft Plan, the sources said.

Just last week the agriculture minister announced the overall strategy aimed at giving a quantum boost to crop production. A new agriculture policy is on the anvil, with enhanced allocations in the Ninth Plan for agricultural research, crop production, training, irrigation, animal husbandry and soil conservation schemes among others.

Another thrust area, that of improving the social infrastructure will take up basic daily needs of the people like drinking water, housing, education, health care and sanitation. After fifty years of independencereaching potable water to the remotest of villages in the country within the next five years must become more than a priority, the Prime Minister is reported to have told the Planning Commission.

Realising the acute water shortages that stare the country in the face and with many urban centres already feeling the pinch, the Centre has begun consultations with state governments to evolve a National Water PolicyConservation of water, cleaning up the existing water resources, ensuring the judicious use of water so that none of it goes waste and planning for the future are the pointers in the discussions with the state before a comprehensive water policy is firmed up.

The ball has been set rolling in the case of yet another priority area: that of making India a global Information Technology power. A National Task Force on information technology under the Planning Commission and with Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu and noted scientist M G K Menon as its co-Chairmen, was set up a month ago to galvanise theobjective of making India a global giant in both generating and exporting software.

The task force, which submitted its Technology action plan this weekend, has identified the bottlenecks hampering the development of the software industry, and setting out the objectives of a National Informatics Policy.

Much of the social agenda is not new. Almost every one of the previous governments have at one time or other tried to push ahead with measures which would give a dynamism to these sectors.Insurance reforms

The Vajpayee Government is considering several steps to encourage foreign investment in India following the realisation that its inward-looking budget may boomerang on an economy reeling under the impact of Western sanctions and the East Asian crisis. Among the steps being debated in government circles is liberalising the rules for foreign institutional investment and opening the insurance sector to partial foreign participation.

Although no decision has been taken yet, official sourcesindicated that the Government is seriously looking at ways of sidestepping its avowed stand against foreign companies in the insurance sector. One such proposal is to define the extent of foreign equity in an Indian insurance company which would allow multinationals to tie up with their Indian counterparts.

Any move on this front is bound to spark off a controversy, especially within the Sangh Parivar. The government will have to tread cautiously and first lobby with its own supporters before taking a decision.

Official sources conceded that although the economic fallout of Western sanctions had been contained, much needed to be done to encourage dwindling private flows into India.