Government is not planning to take up proposals advocating direct use of forex reserves to fund infrastructure development, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.
However, additional investment, in general, had an impact on forex reserves through higher imports, if any, Minister of state for Finance PK Bansal told the house in a written reply.
To another question, he said the Reserve Bank had not accepted so far a proposal by its working group to raise its interest rates by 25 basis points in respect of export credit in foreign currency to cover the cost of funds borrowed by banks from abroad.
LIC: Bansal said there was no proposal to withdraw Government guarantees on 16 crore LIC policies.
ADB: Union Government and Asian Development Bank had tentatively finalised the bank's country strategy programme for 2006-08, he said in reply to another question.
The ADB would make efforts to increase its lending to India from 2.25 billion dollars in 2006 to 2.45 billion dollars in 2007 to 2.65 billion dollars in 2008, should there be demand for it from the states and other executing agencies, he said.
RRBs: The process of structural consolidation of regional rural banks by amalgamating RRBs sponsored by the same bank within a state was initiated, Bansal said in reply to another question.
{{/usCountry}}RRBs: The process of structural consolidation of regional rural banks by amalgamating RRBs sponsored by the same bank within a state was initiated, Bansal said in reply to another question.
{{/usCountry}}The notifications for merger of 78 RRBs to form 23 amalgamated entities had so far been issued and the process was still on, he said.