The Government on Thursday approved 48 foreign direct investment proposals aggregating Rs 793.90 crore (Rs 7.94 billion), including Reliance Energy's Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) proposal seeking foreign equity for its power generation, distribution and transmission venture.

The proposals, recommended by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, were cleared by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, an official statement said in New Delhi on Thursday.

Reliance Energy had sought foreign equity participation to the extent of 50 per cent for its venture in Mumbai for which it is tying up with Mauritius-based Aranda Investments.

The approved proposals also include Mumbai-based financial investment entity Deutsche India Holdings' Rs 225 crore (Rs 2.25 billion) proposal for setting up a holding firm with Singapore-based Deutsche Asia Pacific Holdings.

The major investment proposals pertain to power, industries, health, manufacture and distribution, NBFC activities and software and IT enabled services sectors.

The other proposals cleared are Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) proposal of Saint Gobain Weber to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Rs 17.3 crore (Rs 173 million) of Goa Optolab, Rs 16.2 crore (Rs 162 million) of Allied Domecq Spiritis & Wine and Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) proposal of Bangalore-based ITeS company Viteos Technologies.

Other companies whose FDI proposals were approved include GE Lighting India, Tata Honeywell, Tupperware, MphaSiS BFL, Qualcomm and Convergent Software, the statement said.