Thursday, March 30 2006 16:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The government today (Mar 30, 2006) doubled the financial powers of the Finance and Defence Ministers to facilitate faster clearance of projects, particularly those related to defence acquisitions.

While the Defence Minister can now sanction projects up to Rs 100 crores as against Rs 50 crores earlier, the Finance Minister can now sanction projects up to Rs 200 crores as against Rs 100 crores earlier.

The proposal to enhance the financial powers of the two ministers was cleared by the Union Cabinet at its meeting here chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Announcing this after the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P R Dasmunsi told sources that the enhancement of the financial powers would cover "non-scaled and new items."

The step, according to official sources, was to prevent delays in acquisition of essential defence hardware and spares and is in line with the Arun Singh committee report.

However, sources made it clear that all mega defence purchases like the RFP's for acquisition of 126 fighter aircraft, purchase of 155mm towed, tracked and wheeled guns, and other big bill items of purchases worth more than Rs 200 crores would have to be cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).