Mumbai: The planning commission has set up a high-level committee on financial sector reforms with a view to outlining a comprehensive agenda for the evolution of the financial sector.

The 12-member committee headed by Raghuram G. Rajan will suggest priorities and sequencing decisions, which the government must keep in mind.

The committee will identify the emerging challenges in meeting the financing needs of the Indian economy in the coming decade and to identify real sector reforms that would allow those needs to be more easily met by the financial sector.

It will also examine the performance of various segments of the financial sector and identify changes that will allow it to meet the needs of the real sector, identify changes in the regulatory and the supervisory infrastructures that can better allow the financial sector to play its role, which ensuring that risks are contained.

The terms of reference also include identify changes in other areas of the economy including the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy, and the operation of the legal system and the educational system that could help the financial sector function more effectively.

The committee will submit report by 31 March 2008.

Members of the committee include: Suman Berry, director general NCAER, Uday Kotak of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Rajeev Lall of IDFC, Vijay Mahajan, chairman, Basix, Zia Modi senior partner, AZB Partners, O P Bhatt, chairman, State Bank of India, K V Kamath, ICICI Bank, Chitra Ramakrishna, deputy MD, NSE, R Ravimohan, CRISIL, J R Varma, of Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad, and R. Sridharan, adviser (FR), Planning Commission will be the convener of the committee.