The indian Institute of Finance is organising Two Day National Seminar on Financing India in the new Millennium -Revival & Growth Strategy at Hotel Taj Place, Sardar Patel Marg, New Delhi on December 21st & 22nd, 1998 with a focus on Infrastructure Finance,Finance Reengineering, Restructuring of Banking & Financial Syatem and Financing Agriculture. The first day meet will be inaugurated by Mr. Pranab Mukherjee Former Finance Minister, GOl, while the key Note Speech will be delivered by Dr. S. Chakrabarty, Member MRTP Commission . The second day meet will be inaugrated by Sh. Ram Niwas Mirdha, Chairman JPC Security Scam & the key Note address will be delivered by Mr. N.Vittal Chief Vigilence Commisssioner. Dr.Yogender Alagh, MP & Former Minster of State For Planning, GOI will deliver the Valedictory address.

The session on Infrastructure Finance will be addressed by -Mr. V. Suresh CMD, HUDCO, Mr. P.P Vora, CMD, National Housing Bank, Mr. K. Jairaj, M.D, Karnataka Power Supply Corpn.Ltd., Mr. V.K Garg, Director(Finance), Power Grid Corporation, Mr. P.S Rana, Executive Director, HUDCO, Mr. Prem. Shankar Jha, Economist & Sr. Journalist, Mr. Chander Mohan, Sr. Journalist, Times of India, Prof. S.P. Singh, Dean, University Business School, Punjab University.

The session Finance Reengineering will be addressed by Dr. Bansi Dhar, Chairman ,DCM,Shriram Industries, Mr.S.C.Jha, Former Director ADB & Director ICICI, Prof. Ben L. Kedia ,Univ. of Memphis & HLL Chair. Prof. at IIFT, Prof. I.M. Pandey, Professor Finance & Former Dean,IIMA, Mr. Vinod Madhok, Director Finance-Dalmia Bros., Mr.M.A.Hakeem, Secretary General, SCOPE, Mr. Jayant Dang, Managing Director, Escorts Finance Ltd. and Mr. P.K. Chaudhary,MD, ICRA Ltd.

The Session on Restructuring of Banking & Financial System will be addressed by- Col. S.P. Wahi, Former Chairman ,ONGC, Mr. Krishan Kalra, Chairman -INALSA Ltd. & President AIMA, Mr. T.K. Sinha, Former CMD, State Bank of India, Mr. T.R Rastogi, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GOI, Mr. Sudarshan Sareen, Chairman, DSIDC, Mr. A.K.Doda,Chief General Manager, IDBI, Dr. Arvind Virmani, Sr. Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance,GOI.

The session on Financing Agriculture will be addressed by-Dr. Dinesh Chandra,IAS,Principal Resident Commissioner, Govt. of Punjab, Mr. Manmohan Singh,Chairman ,Frick India Ltd. Dr. N.C Bhandari ,Director Vaikunthlal MICS, Mr. Prem Shankar Jha, Economist & Sr. Journalist, Mr. Tapan Dasgupta,Sr. Journalist, Mr. Jagdish Shettigar, Economic Advisor BJP and Prof. J.D Agarwal, Chairman & Director, IIF.

The conference will be held at a time when India at the threshold of entering in to a new Millennium and had developed its core competancies to compete with the rest of the world. At this junture India needs to devise approprite Revial & Growth Strategies to enter the group of major economic power in the world & need to develop an appropriate infrastructure too. Evolving appropriate strategies to finance the requisite infrastructure is the urgent need of the hour. Accroding to IIF a need of over US$ 200 billion on build up the infrastructure need to be met by developing an approprite perspective plan. The session on Infrastructure would focus on such perspective plan.

The Indian Industry is in the grid of resession with subdued captial market, well establised India Industrial organisations are facing serious difficulties adn have demanding a level playing field ever since the economy has been opened up. The issue of financial innovation to evolve Revival & Growth Strategies for Indian Industry will be focusssed in the session. Some of the issues such as derivatives and options, Implication of by back of Shares, Disinvestement, Employee Stock option Scheme & Acquisition & Takeover , Management, Re-vitalising Captial Market, Mergers & Acquistion & Takeover, Mutual Fund and Impact on Euro currency will be debated at length.

Ever since the opening of the Indian Economy there has a lot of discussion on Restructuring of Banking & Financial Syatem and Insurance Sector but no serious attempt has been made to re-vitalise these sectors of the economy. System failure of Banking & Financial Institution resulting in Security Scam and fiasco in the South East Asia calls for strengthening these sectors to avoid similar crisis in India. Strategies of Financing, to meet the Captial Adequacy norms and strengthen and re-vitalise these sectors will be focused in this session.

According to IIF, financing of the agriculture has been given very little importance in the last fifty years of India's Independence although India's agriculture has sustained the tremendous increase in population from 350 million in 1951 to 950 million in 1998 and reduced India's dependence on rest of the world and the famine situation faced in forty's. India's agriculture which has a potential to produce not only to meet India's needs but also to export has been largely using traditional techniques but suffers from infefficiency and low productivity. India's need for Financing Agriculture to re-vitalise this important sector, on which India's 70% population is engaged, is paramount. According to IIF, both the Center and the State need to develop perspective plans to finance the upgrading of technology to re-vitalise this setor in the new Millennium. This session intends to focus on this crucial issue.