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Union Budget 2001-02 »
Finance Minister Speech : Part 2
Ports
33. Coming to the port sector, I am glad to report that policy initiatives designed to increase private sector participation in ports have also been successfully implemented. Overall, capacity in Indian major ports is expected to go up to 314 million tonnes this year and further to 376 million tonnes by the end of 2001-2002, along with substantial capacity addition in minor ports. There is now adequate capacity in major ports. Ships no longer have to wait for berths as was the case before.
34. Ennore port has already been corporatised and Jawahar Lal Nehru Port in New Mumbai is next, and with experience, other major ports can also be corporatized, enabling them to raise resources in the market. Successful investment is being enabled by the setting of economic tariff levels. With the formation of the Tariff Authority for Major Ports, these tariffs are being rationalised further on a continuing transparent and fair basis.
Financial Sector and Capital Markets
35. A great deal of progress has been made over the last few years in pursuing reforms in the financial sector and capital markets. I propose to continue reform in this sector.
Debt Market
36. The Indian equity market is the oldest in Asia. Since the creation of SEBI much greater transparency as well as automaticity has been introduced in the working of the equity market. The need now is to develop and deepen the debt market. This will be of great benefit to small investors and institutional investors alike. The infrastructure sector will be enabled to raise long term funds, particularly with the opening of the insurance sector.
37. In order to further develop a transparent and active debt market in general, and the Government securities market in particular, I propose to take the following measures:
lA Clearing Corporation will be set up under the active encouragement of the RBI, with State Bank of India as the chief promoter, and is expected to be in place by June 2001. It will also enable settlement of forex transactions.
lTrading of Government Securities, through order driven screen-based system will be implemented.
lAn electronic Negotiated Dealing System will be set up by the RBI by June 2001 to facilitate transparent electronic bidding in auctions and dealings in Government securities on a real time basis.
lIn order to ensure smooth and quick movement of funds, the Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) and Real Time Gross Settlement Systems (RTGS) are being put in place by the Reserve Bank of Indiawithin the next year.
lClarifications are being issued by CBDT to promote the issuance of STRIPS, zero coupon bonds, deep discount bonds, and the like.
lThe old Public Debt Act will be replaced by Government Securities Act.
lComprehensive legislation will be introduced on securitization.
38. I propose to set up a small group comprising the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the stock exchanges and Ministry of Finance to monitor and implement these developments so that the debt market becomes active next year.
