The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA has given its approval to the Swedish retailer IKEA for Foreign Direct Investment, FDI in single-brand retail. The approval will result in FDI inflows amounting to around 10,500 crore rupees in the country. A decision to this effect was taken at the meeting, chaired by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi last evening.
It also approved the proposal of the Human Resource Development Ministry for the revision of certain norms and subsuming of other centrally sponsored schemes of secondary education under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. This will facilitate the State governments to execute civil works for construction of new schools as well as expanding capacity in existing schools.
The CCEA also gave its nod to the removal of the cap on the amount of losses to be reimbursed on the procurement of copra under Price Support Scheme for the benefit of farmers. The government took this decision to ensure remunerative prices to copra growers and to see that farmers get the Minimum Support Price, MSP, as per government policy.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs cleared the extension of government guarantee of 1,781 crore rupees to enable the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) and Central Warehousing Corporation to undertake price support operations for procurement of oil seeds, pulses and cotton.
The CCEA also approved the setting up of a Central Public Sector Enterprises Exchange Traded Fund to help in minimizing market disruptions seen in public offerings of listed CPSEs.