Economy
Central schemes streamlined, 139 scrapped
IN a move designed to impart distinct improvement in expenditure management and ensure the efficacy of plan initiatives, the Planning Commission has knocked off as many as 139 Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) out of 256 such schemes. Official sources t old Business Line here that though talks were under way for quite some time to transfer CSSs to States or converge or merge or weed out schemes that had outlived their utilities, it is only during this week that a decision was taken by the Members of the Planning Commission at the Secretary level meeting on the transfer/ convergence/ weeding out of CSSs for the Tenth Five Year Plan.

Anti-dumping duty on two EU products
THE Finance Ministry has imposed definitive anti-dumping duty on all imports of theophylline and caffeine from the European Union (EU).

Foreign Trade
Scope of market access initiative scheme widened
EXPORT Promotion Councils (EPCs) and other trade promotion organisations (TPOs), under the expanded `Market Access Initiative' Scheme recently proposed by the Commerce Ministry, will now be required to project their requirements for undertaking market pr omotion efforts overseas on a `country-product focus approach' basis in a single project.

PSU
COPU picks holes in MMTC gold business
THE Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) has found gaping holes in the import of gold and its trading by MMTC Ltd, the public sector company involved in bulk handling of materials, as also the management of the policy by the Ministry of Commerce in th e period 1988-1991 and 1992-97 under the various schemes of gold trade.

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