new delhi concerned over delay in implementation of projects finance minister p chidambaram on saturday suggested setting of a national investment board nib under prime minister to accord speedy clearances to mega proposals the nibs authority should extend to proposalsprojects where the investment is above a certain threshold say rs 1000 crore once the final decision is taken by the nib no other ministry or department or authority should be able to interfere with that decision or delay its implementation he said during his intervention at the meeting of the full planning commission chidambaram regretted that under the present dispensation a truly final decision on projects does not emerge for many years he said outlays in the 11th five plan felt short of targets mainly because of failure to achieve physical targets giving illustrations the minister pointed out that addition in power generation capacity during the plan period was 55000 mw as against the target of 78700 mw similar shortfalls were witnessed in other key sectors like coal crude oil gas and railways in order to overcome these problems chidambaram said i would urge that we seriously consider the need to set up a mechanism at the cabinet level to take final decisions on major investment proposals especially in the infrastructure sector the authority to take the final decisiondecisions should be vested in a nib to be chaired by the prime minister and the allocation of business rules should be amended to create such a mechanism he added at present the business rules allocate the authority to take the final decision to one or more ministries the outcomes chidambaram said must be measured not only in terms of achieving the financial outlays but also achieving the physical targets the main reason why actual growth rate in each plan period was less than the targeted growth rate was the failure to achieve physical targets referring to the 82 per cent growth target in the 12th five year plan 201217 he said it was realistic given the fact the gross domestic product gdp grew by 76 per cent in the 10th plan and 79 per cent in the 11th plan the minister however described the 12th plans proposal to reduce subsidy from 19 per cent of gdp in the budget estimates of 201213 to 12 per cent in 201617 as overoptimistic according to the minister the estimated major subsidies in 201213 would be around 24 per cent of gdp and a sharp fall as assumed in the plan may be overoptimistic direct cash transfer of subsidies in food fertilisers and petroleum will help in this reduction i would urge that by the end of the 12th plan these three major subsidies be rolled out across the country through direct cash transfers to the beneficiaries pilot projects are already under implementation for lpg and kerosene and it is our intention to extend the direct transfer mechanism to the uts in the first phase he added on the investment side the minister said