The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today convened a meeting of ministers and senior officials to examine the report of the Ashok Chawla Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources. The committee on allocation of natural resources was constituted to examine the approach to allocating natural resources such as land, coal, minerals, petroleum and natural gas.

The purpose was to obtain recommendations which would enhance transparency, effectiveness and sustainability in the allocation, pricing and utilization of natural resources through open, transparent and competitive mechanisms and to suggest changes in the legal, institutional and regulatory framework to implement the recommendations.

The recommendations of the Committee had been examined by the Group of Ministers on corruption headed by the Finance Minister. The GoM had accepted 69 of the 81 recommendations given by the Ashok Chawla committee.

Our correspondent reports, at the end of the meeting it was decided that all the 69 agreed recommendations would be pursued for implementation by individual ministries in a timely manner.