Agenda to determine policies: Patnaik  

BIJU Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik said that the National Agenda for governance would determine the policy stance of the Union ministries of steel and mines. Biju Patnaik's 52-year-old son took charge of the Union ministry for mines at 10.30 on Friday morning and broke ice with steel ministry officials, shortly afternoon. Fielding questions from the Press on policy measures he intended to take to revive the steel industry, now gasping for want of a demand for steel, Patnaik said the industry would be given the necessary fillip. The National Agenda's commitment to construct 20 lakh houses every year would tantamount to the consumption of a lot of steel, he quipped. Patnaik, who steps into his father's shoes if only two decades later (Biju Patnaik was steel and mines minister in the Morarji Desai Cabinet in 1977,) pointed out that the recession in steel was the fallout of a general industrial slow-down. Steel companies were bereft of a market partly because infrastructure projects had not taken off, he argued. He would not commit himself to a policy stance on public or private investment, however.