Barely a month after the UPA government came back in to power, the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) has swung into action and directed the ministries and departments concerned to come up with “clear-cut milestones” coupled with “actionable time lines” for implementing these “iconic” projects effectively.

The areas identified by the Prime Minister — including the multi-sectoral development programme for minorities, development of land ports, infrastructure development in the north eastern region — was in tune with the government’s plan to accelerate growth and make it socially and regionally more “inclusive and equitable”.

It is learnt that T K A Nair, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, held a meeting with top officials of the ministries and departments associated with these projects to review the progress in their implementation. The ministries were asked to specify how they feel the projects would move forward.

Snce the Prime Minister “feels very strongly” about these initiatives and has accorded them high priority, the role of the PMO would be to explore ways to resolve inter-ministerial issues and to ensure coordination between various stakeholders so that the implementation of these projects are speeded up, sources told The Indian Express.

For instance, the Prime Minister wants the external affairs ministry to be in the loop on the implementation of the $90-million Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor as well as railway freight corridor projects because these involve foreign aid. Besides, the PMO’s role is key in resolving possible issues with states on account of land acquisition for these two mega-infrastructure projects.

As far as the north-east and Jammu and Kashmir are concerned, enhancing rail, road and air connectivity to these regions are high on the Prime Minister’s agenda, apart from expediting work on some mega power projects. It is also learnt that Singh wants work on the setting up of a gas cracker project in Assam’s Dibrugarh district to be speeded up.

The PMO, it is said, was also of the view that details about how some of these projects are moving forward should be placed in the public domain — this could in fact act as a driving force for their speedy implementation. The government had earlier announced plans to set up a delivery monitoring unit in the PMO to monitor “flagship programmes and iconic projects” and publicly report on their status in the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament.