Rs 2,000 cr fund for export risk cover

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the setting up of a Rs 2,000-crore National Export Insurance Account to provide export credit risk cover to large value export transactions and project exports.

The account will be maintained and operated by a public trust to be set up jointly by the department of commerce and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd, on the lines of the Credit Guarantee Trust Fund for small scale industries.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the account would cover India's exports to vulnerable economies where reinsurance is necessary.

The CCEA also approved the dissolution of Pharmaceutical Research and Development Support Fund (PRDSF) corpus of Rs 150 crores in the Department of Science & Technology.

The fund was dissolved as the Planning Commission, while approving an outlay of Rs 1,250 crores for 2005-06 annual Plan of Department of Science and Technology, had allocated an outlay of Rs 150 crores for "drugs and pharmaceutical research" with the specific condition that the outlay should be operated only after the existing corpus for "Pharmaceutical Research and Development Support Fund" was dissolved.

The Cabinet also approved the promulgation of an Ordinance for bringing procedural changes in the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 relating to electronic filing of documents to enable implementation of MCA 21 e-governance project of the ministry of company affairs.

The ordinance was passed as Parliament was not in session, and the MCA-21 Project was scheduled to start from mid-February 2006. The Cabinet also cleared the creation of the post of Consul-General to reopen Consulate General of India (CGI) in Karachi, Pakistan, which was closed in 1995.