PM keeps Finance, to chalk out agenda

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a meeting of all top officials of the finance ministry in his office on Wednesday. Singh will follow it up with a one-to-one meeting with C Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.

The Prime Minister is expected to lay out his plans for the ministry, including the reporting structure that will run through the monsoon session of Parliament, said an official.

The meetings, over two days, will also decide the contours of the economic agenda that Singh will want the finance ministry to pursue. These include taking a call on immediate priorities like the Vodafone case, telecom spectrum issues and revival of confidence in the economy by taking some market friendly measures. Incidentally, in his discussions with Pranab Mukherjee before the tax amendment Bill was cleared, Singh had reportedly urged for restraint in the Vodafone tax dispute.

The meetings are also expected to take a call on how to steer the 24 GoMs that Mukherjee headed. Singh is also likely to ask outgoing chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu to extend his term with the finance ministry to ensure a sense of continuity at a crucial period. Basu is slated to leave the ministry at the end of July after his three-year contract ends. While Secretary, Economic Affairs, R Gopalan, is set to demit office on July 31, Singh is not expected to make any other changes in the ministry's top team.

Singh's active intervention immediately after Mukherjee's departure signals that he will not bring in a full-fledged finance minister in the immediate future. Late Tuesday evening, the President's office issued a release to say that Singh would retain finance.

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