New Delhi: New ministers in Manmohan Singh government, who took their oath on Thursday, took charge of office on Friday.
Kapil Sibal, the new HRD minister, Shashi Tharoor, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Anand Sharma, the Commerce Minister and Farooq Abdullah, the Minister for Renewable Energy have already taken charge of their respective offices.
The new Telecom Minister, DMK's A Raja, even went a step further and announced his agenda in the months to come.
He told NDTV that both local and STD calls will soon get cheaper. He also said that 3G spectrum auction will be held within two months, which means better bandwidth.
Taking charge for the second term, Oil Minister Murli Deora said that consumers may no longer be insulated from global oil price hikes.
Commerce Minister Anand Sharma spoke about ways to tackle the economic slowdown and Salman Khursheed about reforms in the Department of Company Affairs.
Khursheed said the first priority of the ministry would be to reintroduce the Companies Bill, 2008, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha and now stands lapsed.
As regard the corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, Khursheed said the government is in the process of looking if it can set up some kind of early warning system to prevent corporate failures and scam.
"A number of issues related to the corporate governance framework, role of directors, role of auditors also needs to be examined carefully and necessary corrections are required to be made in the corporate governance framework," he added.
When pointed out that the SFIO has shortage of staff and does not have powers like that of CBI, Khursheed said these issues need to be looked holistically and the ways of making optimal use of the investigation arm.
Getting down to business, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said the government may consider increasing the price of coal, depending on the economic situation.
"With the changes in the economic scenario and price rise in products like petroleum, along with the impact of Sixth Pay Commission on Coal India Ltd, if required the coal prices could be increased," Jaiswal told reporters after assuming office as Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Coal.
"But for that (price hike), I have to speak with the Prime Minister," he said.
When asked about the quantum of price increase, the minister said, "If it happens it will be marginal."
Earlier this week, state-owned Coal India had said that it is planning to increase prices of coal following a hike in wages and salaries of its employees, which has eaten into its bottom line.
(With PTI inputs)