Kamal Nath calls for reforms in governance

March 7th, 2011 - 10:27 pm ICT by ANI  

New Delhi, Mar 7 (ANI): After receiving the report of the High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure, Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath today said the reforms in governance is needed to bring about more developments.

“The next phase of reforms has to happen and along with that we have to look at just not reforms in trade and investment. We could look at reforms in governance,” he said.

When questioned about his views on liberalisation and FDI in the urban sector, Kamal Nath said: “We have done a large number of reforms. Some are still required to be done and we have to calibrate this.”

“So that Indian industry, Indian financial institutions are able to absorb this (liberalisation). We cannot have rampant liberalisation, you can’t have rampant reforms,” he added.

The High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure submitted its report to Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath and the Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja earlier today.

The committee, which was chaired by Dr Isher Ahluwalia and included as members, Nasser Munjee, Dr Nachiket Mor, Dr M Vijayanunni, Sudhir Mankad, Dr Rajiv Lall, Hari Sankaran, Ramesh Ramanathan, Prof Om Prakash Mathur and P.K. Srivastava, made a presentation to the two Ministers here at Nirman Bhavan.

The committee has emphasized that India’s economic growth momentum cannot be sustained if urbanisation is not actively facilitated nor can urban poverty be effectively addressed if the needs of the urban poor are isolated from the broader challenges of managing urbanisation.

The committee has stated that cities will have to become the engines of national development. The fortunes of the agricultural sector are also crucially linked to the development of markets for agriculture, which will be enhanced by urban expansion.

The committee has emphasised the importance of maintaining these assets if the investments are to make a durable impact on service delivery.

The committee believes that municipal entities need to be strengthened as local governments with ‘own’ sources of revenue and predictable formula-based transfers from state governments. (ANI)

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