• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

G. Chandrashekar

INDIA is one of the world's fastest growing significant economies. In the Ninth Five-Year Plan ended 2001-02, the average annual rate of GDP growth was 5.4 per cent, with wide inter-year swings. The GDP growth target for the Tenth Five-Year Plan beginning 2002-03 is 8 per cent. Will India be able to achieve that robust level of GDP growth?

Infrastructure will play a critical role in the country's quest for that ambitious goal. Currently, the macro-economic indicators are favourable. Foreign exchange reserves have crossed $75 billion; foodgrain stocks are record high; inflation is under control; industry is on the growth path; and highly liberalised foreign trade and competition is helping infuse efficiency. Importantly, there is now a renewed emphasis on infrastructure, so critical for the growth of the cargo industry.

The world economy is showing signs of recovery from the slowdown of the last two years. At the same time, security perceptions are changing, with terrorism and war fears distorting the global business climate. These developments prove a big challenge for the Indian cargo industry. There is a huge domestic market waiting to be tapped; there's also the dependence on imports for essential goods such as petroleum, coal, fertilisers, edible oil, pulses.

For the Indian industry to become globally competitive, supply side efficiencies have to improve and transaction costs must reduce. Hence, issues relating to transportation and communication, roads, railways, airports, seaports, telecom, the postal system, electricity transmission and distribution have become the focus of attention. The Government has launched several infrastructure projects for rapid economic growth. These relate to roads, shipping and ports, rail and air. The salient ones are:

Roadways

The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana is the most ambitious rural infrastructure project since Independence. Over the last two years, nearly Rs 7,000 crore has been sanctioned to the States, enabling construction of 20,000 km of roads. Efforts are being made to raise additional resources for this project and devise innovative ways of speeding up implementation. The National Highways Development Project is one of India's proudest success stories. As against a total of 556 km of four- and six-lane highways constructed during the first 50 years of Independence, today we are constructing 5 km of world-class highways every day! The Government is spending Rs 20 crore a day on construction of nearly 15,000 km of world-class highways from 1999 to 2007.

The Golden Quadrilateral, which measures 6,000 km, is progressing ahead of schedule in many cases. Contracts worth over Rs 18,000 crore have already been awarded, mostly to Indian contractors. The project is already generating daily employment for 2.5 lakh construction workers and 10,000 supervisors. On completion of its first phase alone, it would have created 18 crore mandays of employment. Besides giving a big boost to cement and steel industries, it is expected that the Golden Quadrilateral alone would save Rs 8,000 crore annually on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.

Railways

The Government has taken various initiatives to put the Railways, the country's premier transportation infrastructure, on the path of fast-track growth. A new non-budgetary investment initiative, called the National Rail Vikas Yojana, has been launched. It envisages investment of Rs 15,000 crore over the next five years. A major project, costing over Rs 3,500 crore, for constructing the Udhampur to Baramullah railway line in Jammu & Kashmir is being implemented. It will ensure that the first train rolls into the Kashmir Valley before August 15, 2007.

Completion of all viable sanctioned railway projects within the next 10 years, out of a total shelf of projects of about Rs 40,000 crore, is also being planned. A non-lapsable Special Railway Safety Fund of Rs 17,000 crore has been set up for renewal of over-aged assets and safety-enhancement works.

Shipping and Ports

Shipping and port development is turning around strongly. Total cargo handling capacity of major ports in 2002 was more than the traffic in the previous year. Indian Ports no longer suffer from capacity constraints, resultant congestion, and high turn-around time for ships. In its continued endeavour to attract private sector investment, the Government has offered three major projects for operation of container terminals.

Civil aviation

The Government soon intends to bring in a new Civil Aviation Policy, which will liberalise the sector, usher in regulated competition, attract investment, and modernise airports to provide affordable but world-class services to passengers.

Telecom

The incredible rate of growth of the telecom services in India, the sheer size of the sector, the dramatic improvement in quality and the equally dramatic fall in tariffs have together scripted one of the major achievements of the country in recent years. This is one area where the fruits of reforms have benefitted the common man directly. Until a few years ago, people were standing in queues to obtain a telephone. Today, several telephone companies are standing in queue to get the people to choose their telephones. Between April 1999 and October 2002, 1.67 lakh villages have been covered by village public telephones, resulting in 85 per cent coverage. The number of mobile phones, which was 14 lakh in April 1999, has now crossed the one-crore mark.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Qatar Air launches flight to Kochi

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line