The Hindu Business Line : FM to hold pre-Budget meetings this week — Farm sector, labour unions figure in the guest list

REFLECTING the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's priorities, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, is set to hold a series of four pre-budget meetings later this week, starting off with an interaction with representatives from the agriculture community.

Caring for the needs of the farm sector has been right on top of the agenda set out by the recently released Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA Government.

Moreover, not surprisingly, in the backdrop of the present political formation where the ruling coalition is heavily dependent on the Left parties for its survival, a session with trade union representatives would also figure prominently in the deliberations.

The meetings are expected to be on Thursday and Saturday. The other meeting on the first day, besides the one with the agriculturists, would be with industrialists, with all prominent names from the Indian corporate sector and the leading chambers of commerce likely to take part in the deliberations.

Later on Saturday, besides trade unions, it would be the turn of leading economist to hold a brainstorming session with the Finance Minister.

The individual guest-list for the meetings, however, could not be ascertained.

Reports suggest that Mr Chidambaram would be presenting the Union Budget sometime during the first week of July.

According to Finance Ministry sources, official-level pre-budget meetings are to be held during the week with the Finance Secretary, Mr D.C. Gupta and other senior officials likely to hold meetings with counterparts in the agriculture and the commerce ministries.

The Finance Ministry officials said that there is a possibility that the Finance Minister's pre-budget meetings would be limited to the set of four that have been scheduled for the week.

"There is a possibility that these would be the only pre-budget meeting that the Finance Minister would attend," an official said.

While earlier Finance Ministers, including Mr Chidambaram during his earlier stint at the North Block, used to hold elaborate pre-budget meetings with various sections including chiefs of banks and FIs, small-scale sector and also senior representatives of the media, the routine was dispensed with by the earlier Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, who had asked all those who suggestions on the budget to mail their memorandums to the Ministry.