FIPB taken away from Jaitley, given to Jaswant

NEW DELHI: Within hours of Arun Jaitley taking over as the new Commerce and Industry Minister, the important Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) was taken away from him and given to Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.
"FIPB will now be under the Finance Minister," an official spokeman told PTI here.
The decision follows a 30 minute meeting the Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, who also holds the portfolio of Department of Company Affairs, had with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday evening.
Singh, however, did not talk to reporters after emerging from the meeting.
Neither Jaitley nor Industry secretary Govindrajan were available for their comments. Govindrajan had chaired a meeting of FIPB immediately after Jaitley took charge of the Ministry.
On why the Department of Company Affairs had not been shifted back to Law and Justice, Jaitley told reporters earlier during the day that "there is a lot of synergy that DCA has with the Finance Ministry".
"Even earlier as Law Minister, I used to interact a lot with the Finance Minister on DCA as there is overlapping with Sebi," he said.
Till the Cabinet reshuffle on Thursday there were reports that Jaswant Singh would get the additional charge of Disinvestment Ministry while DCA would be clubbed with Law for Jaitley.
Ever since Jaswant Singh had taken charge as Finance Minister in place of Yashwant Sinha, there were reports that he would also take charge of FIPB for better coordination and attracting more foreign direct investment.
However, the moves were resisted by Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran, the DMK representative in the NDA government, sources said.
The issue surfaced again after Arun Shourie was given additional charge of Commerce and Industry when Maran had gone to the US for treatment.
Foreign Direct Investment is presently allowed through the automatic route under power delegated by RBI and for remaining activities on the basis of a recommendation by FIPB.
Under the FIPB route, projects involving foreign investment with project cost of up to Rs 600 crore are approved at the level of Commerce and Industry Minister.