In a three-hour long review meeting chaired by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, ten major items relating to power sector were discussed, including speeding up of financial closure and funding mechanism for starting work at the project sites.

The projects that were deliberated at the meeting were the 2000 mw Talcher-II in Orissa, 1000 mw SIMHADRI in Andhra Pradesh, 650 mw Kawas and Anta power projects in Gujarat and Rajasthan respectively, promoted by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), a top finance ministry official said.

The meeting was also attended by Power Minister P R Kumaramangalam and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar reviewed the status of 1040 mw Hinduja's power project at Visakhapatnam. The official said coal linkage for the project has been almost sorted out and they would meet again tofinalise the premium for insurance to enable the project start off.

Three other NTPC power projects which are to be speeded up are 150 mw Kayankulam in Kerala, 500 mw Vindhyachal in Madhya Pradesh and the 500 mw Unchahar in Uttar Pradesh.

The official said this would give the much needed demand for the ailing steel and cement sectors. Issues relating to World Bank not committing loans for various power projects in the wake of economic sanctions were also discussed at the meeting. The Finance Ministry cleared NTPC's proposal to tap the external commercial borrowings (ECB) market of one billion dollars for the Talcher Project-II, the official said.

Resources were not a constraint and projects would not suffer for want of funds if the World Bank did not commit to provide loans, he said. The finance minister would hold a meeting with various financial institutions on September 10 in Mumbai to sort out the remaining problems regarding finances for various power projects, he said.

The official said that themeeting took a favourable view for granting infrastructure status to transmission utilities, so as to match the generation units.

The main purpose of today's meeting was to take up these projects on a ``crash basis'' so that massive construction activity in these power projects would have a multiplier effect in generating demand in other sectors of the economy.

The finance minster had similar meetings in the last few days to revive the housing activity and generate demand for the sagging steel industry, the official said adding government would soon evolve a mechanism to take a quick action on dumping of steel.

One proposal being considered by the government was fixed price duty for steel imports, he said. The government would hold similar meetings for the paper sector as well, the official added.