Vajpayee sets economic agenda
New Delhi: In his first address to the nation after taking over as prime minister, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spelt out a five-point economic agenda. He said the agenda is aimed at fiscal consolidation and speeding up reforms to push rural and infrastructure development, to fulfil the promise of safe drinking water, primary education and health to all.

He said the government proposes to evolve a programme for achieving fiscal rectitude by improved expenditure management, deep tax reforms and a new mechanism for speedier restructuring and disinvestment of public sector units. The government will also "rearrange priorities of development by redeploying resources and strengthening institutions for providing to all safe drinking water, primary health services, primary education, rural roads and housing to rural homeless," Mr Vajpayee said.

He sought the cooperation and participation of the private sector in this endeavour.

The reforms will have a human face, the prime minister said. The government of free India had set itself the noble task of wiping every tear from every eye, of ending centuries-old discriminations and social inequities. Somewhere along the journey from freedom to the eve of this century, the government lost track of that task, he said.
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RBI infuses Rs 7,000 crore into markets
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India opened its purchasing window on 16 October and announced that it will purchase all the seventeen 364-day treasure bills it had issued in calendar year 1999 up to 24 August 1999. This enabled banks to sell their surplus holdings in government securities to the RBI for cash and pump in Rs 7,000 crore into the money markets.

The central bank it wanted to arrest the upward movement in call rates, which have been somewhere near 25 per cent. The rates fell down immediately to the 9 to 12 per cent level.

This is for the first time in the current financial year that the RBI has used its purchase window to infuse liquidity into the money market.
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Syndicate Bank to enter insurance sector
Bangalore: Syndicate Bank will tie up with health insurance companies when the insurance sector is opened up for private sector participation. The bank is also looking at mutual funds, gold deposits and e-commerce sectors for its growth, its chairman and managing director K.V. Krishnamurthy said.

The bank proposes to hold equity in health insurance companies to take advantage of their regional strength, Mr Krishnamurthy said.
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Government's overdraft at Rs 6,833 crore
Mumbai: The government's overdraft facility with the Reserve Bank of India (ways and means account) has shot up to Rs 6,833 crore in the week ended 1 October 1999. It was Rs 2,234 crore in the previous week.

The RBI's weekly statistical supplement said loans and advances to state governments fell to Rs 1,022 crore from Rs 2,093 crore during the same period.
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3 Japanese insurers to form alliance
Tokyo: Mitsui Marine and Fire Insurance Company is joining two other major Japanese non-life insurers, Nippon Fire and Marine Insurance Company and Koa Fire and Marine Insurance Company, to form a broad alliance under a joint holding company.

The alliance will create the largest non-life group in Japan with combined assets of more than $57.1 billion, beating the current No 1, Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Company.
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