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| Elections in mind, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh is hurrying to meet his promise of garib ke pet me dana and all other people-centric announcements.
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| Singh is readying a complete dossier on the follow-up initiated by his ministry and is simultaneously keeping track of the action taken by his counterparts in other ministries and departments.
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| Of the 25 schemes and plans announced by him, action has been completed in half-a-dozen and some progress achieved in about a dozen. The balance are still on the discussion stages.
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| While about 10 issues directly fall under his purview, the balance involve close co-ordination with other ministries and departments including agriculture, rural development, commerce, Planning Commission, sports and youth affairs, etc.
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| A universal community-based health scheme has already been announced by the general insurance companies to cover almost 5 million BPL families. LIC too has launched the Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana.
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| The public sector banks will soon provide loans to the small scale sector at interest rates similar to that provided to the agricultural sector.
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| Singh has already announced that farmers will be charged only 9 per cent a year for loans up to Rs 50,000. Further, a pilot project to franchise agricultural credit through post offices is likely to be implemented by September this year.
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| While the Reserve Bank of India has advised private sector banks to open 25 per cent of their branches in rural and semi-urban areas, several banks have reverted to the apex bank that they were still conducting surveys to check the feasibility.
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| Singh has sought that RBI act on the issue more actively.
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| He simplified the procedure for the decentralised sector including weavers, processors, tailors, etc by exempting them from obtaining central excise registration, paying duty and maintaining records.
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The allotment of PAN cards has been outsourced to UTI Investor Services Ltd and discussions are on with National Securities Depository Ltd to host the revenue department
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