25 feet to nirvana

 

 

The twin factors which mar India’s march to the global league of economic powers are poverty and shoddy infrastructure. If only we had realised in the 80s that sadak, bijli and pani are as essential to growth as roti, kapda and makaan are to politics. India has been a slow starter in terms of infrastructure. Although investors pour in money, they continue to be wary of the risks imposed by poor roads and communication facilities. Not only for foreign investors but also for the population in big cities, polluted environment, bumpy roads, erratic power supply and disease inflected drinking water have become a nightmare.

The model selected to achieve world-class infrastructure is based on public-private partnership. According to Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, CII Infrastructure Council, “The 11th five year plan (2007-2012) envisages investment of $350b to spruce up infrastructure.” Thirty-four percent of the investments are slated for energy; 19% for railways; 3% for ports and airports each and 14% for highways construction.

The Indian road network, about 3.32 million kilometers long, consists of 65,569 km of National Highways, (just 2% of the total length of roads), but carries about 40% of the traffic. In the Golden Quadrilateral project, as compared to only 1.8 kilometers of roads built daily till 2004, the National Highway Authority of India has been able to enhance the capacity to roughly 4 kilometers a day and by 2008 almost 6,000 kilometers of national highways connecting major cities are likely to be in place. To improve power generation in the short term, the Ministry of Power has its ‘Partnership in Excellence’ programme. The Central Electricity Authority has identified 26 thermal power stations operating at a PLF (Plant Load Factor) of less than 60%. The concept of Partnership in Excellence envisages creating synergy between these 26 stations and the better performing ones – the plan would utilise the expertise of the latter to improve the performance of these 26 stations. To meet the growing energy demands, the government is also encouraging the development of hydel, wind and nuclear sources. By 2012 the government plans to build an All-India power grid, called the National Grid.

The 12 Indian ports under the stewardship of the Directorate-General of Shipping need to improve efficiency. Hong Kong port, the largest container port in the world, processed 21.93 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) in 2004. In comparison, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port, India’s largest container port, handled only about 2.37 million TEUs. An investment of Rs 2,662 crore has been made in various captive projects. The civil aviation sector is also beginning to look up with the policy of airport privatisation and private airlines being offered incentives. The government needs to offer much greater incentives to the private sector to speed up the implementation of blueprint. Maybe service is a better word than revenue for infrastructure development.