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(From right) Mr J. Ganguly, Chairman, Working Group on Roads, CII SR and Vice-President, Larsen &Toubro (Transportation projects) , Mr Albab Akanda, Head, Infrastructure, Asian Development Bank, and Mr Rohit Modi, CEO, Tamil Nadu Road Development Co, at the CII summit on Integrated Infrastructure Development in Chennai on Thursday.

CHENNAI, March 20

THE Asian Development Bank will step up its investment in the infrastructure sector in India, with its lending almost doubling to $2 billion during 2003-04. It will also look at new sectors such as inland water transport and agro-processing for assistance.

The details of the assistance and the projects it will lend to will be finalised shortly, Mr Albab Akanda, Head - Infrastructure, ADB, India, told presspersons here on Thursday on the sidelines of the infrastructure summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Apart from the ongoing projects on the roads sector, the ADB was looking at three inland water transport projects and a decision on which project to assist would be taken shortly, Mr Akanda said. The bank's assistance to this sector was expected to be about $200 million. The bank also hoped to increase its attention on the North-East during the coming year.

He said that the bank was also looking at a clean fuel project in Kolkata. The bank's three focus States were Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat, while it had programmes in other States such as Karnataka.

Earlier, Mr Akanda said ADB's areas of interest in the infrastructure sector in the country were physical investment, policy and institutional reforms, and addressing social and environment concerns. There was need to apply user charges more effectively, and also operate and maintain the newly-created assets. As far as its involvement with individual States was concerned, the ADB was pressing for institutional and policy reforms, including reforming the public works departments in these States.

Dealing with the subject of `Looking beyond NHDP', Mr Rohit Modi, Chief Executive Officer, Tamil Nadu Road Development Co Ltd, said that the National Highways Development Programme covered a small percentage of the total highway network in the country. Also, a third of the States and union territories were not covered under the programme.

As it is, the borrowings for the NHDP entailed a debt service of almost Rs 10,000 crore, including both interest and principal repayment.

There was need for connecting all the State capitals to a four-lane national highway and ensuring that the newly-formed States had better connectivity, especially to ports.

He said there was a need to separate policy and operational issues. Also, the issue of handing over the entire national highway network to the National Highways Authority of India needed to be looked into. Besides, the entire national highways network should be standardised.

Mr Modi wondered how effective the National Rural Roads Authority would be since rural roads were under the control of the individual local bodies in the States.

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