| Speaking at the 16th Asian Corporate Conference session on "India's new priorities: Extending the reach of economic reform and prosperity", jointly organised by the Asia Society, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and the Wall Street Journal today, Ahluwalia said,"The country can absorb three times of FDI that currently exists. We are also working on a policy for streamlining and liberalising it further." |
| Asked about raising the FDI limit in the real estate sector, he said the commission was "looking into that matter, in general as part of the policy review. About a year ago, the policy towards FDI investment in real estate was liberalised. There are demands to liberalise it further and this is something that we are discussing as part of a general review." |
| Later, speaking on the sidelines of the conference, he reiterated the strong need for incentives in the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP) to cut down power transmission and distribution (T&D) losses, keeping in mind the cumulative loss of Rs 24,000 crore for state electricity boards. |
| Ahluwalia said the power sector would remain an area of concern if the T&D losses were not brought down. |
| "Government has recently initiated five ultra modern mega power projects. But the country is not seeing progress in distribution side. Though this is state governments' area, the government should work to restructure the reforms to cut down the losses." |
| He said over 36 per cent of the power generated was unproductive due to the heavy T&D losses. |
| "No system or country can run if 36 per cent of the product does not get any return. I think state governments should address this problem more seriously." |
| State governments are making efforts to cut down the losses and it is resulting in 1.5 per cent reduction every year. |
| "But if the result is this slow, it will take another 15 years to eliminate T&D losses. State governments should speed up the reforms in APDRP," he said. |
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