The Finance Ministry on Wednesday will consider 26 proposals of foreign direct investment (FDI), including that of Punj Lloyd and Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company.

The proposals are listed on the agenda of the 189th meeting of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). The meeting will be headed by Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram, an official said.

Six of the FDI applications, including that of Tamil Nadu based SIDD Life Sciences and Mumbai-based Sanofi-Synthelabo (India), to be taken up the Board this week are related with pharma sector, an official said.

Other FDI proposals that are scheduled to be considered include that of Muthoot Finance Ltd (Kerala), Euronet Services India Pvt Ltd, Asia Net Communication and Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd.

The FIPB had earlier also taken up the applications of Punj Lloyd and Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company, but had deferred decision.

India allows FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but FIPB clearance is required in certain sensitive sectors.

For the April-December period of 2012-13, the inflows have declined by about 42 per cent to USD 16.94 billion.

Sectors which received large FDI inflows during the nine months of the current fiscal include services, hotel and tourism, metallurgical, construction and automobiles.

India received maximum FDI from Mauritius, followed by Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

The government has been liberalising foreign investment policy with an aim to attract maximum FDI in the country.

Also, in Budget, the government has proposed to follow the international practice with regard to defining FDI and foreign institutional investors (FII) to remove the ambiguity in making distinction between the two types of investments.