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Infrastructure user charges -- Stumbling block political: Shourie

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, March 7

THE stumbling block for levying appropriate user charges for infrastructure services is entirely political, the Minister of State for Planning and Programme Implementation, Mr. Arun Shourie, said here on Tuesday.

Delivering the inaugural address at the national conference on making bankable infrastructure projects happen, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here, Mr. Shourie said cross-subsidisation had gone completely beyond any level of desirabili ty, but players in the political field were still opposed to proper correction in the system.

According to Mr. Shourie, an amount of about Rs. 52,000 crores was locked up due to delays in and poor implementation of projects, as well as dispute resolution.

Of the 446 public sector projects surveyed recently, more than 60 per cent had time and cost over-runs. The cost over-runs in some of these cases were to the tune of about 76 per cent, whereas the time overruns varied from one month to 16 years, he said.

Public opinion has become supportive of economic reforms. In fact, the debate has crossed the first stage _ whether reform was necessary _ to the second stage, involving details of reform. Mr. Shourie urged public advocacy for economic reform so that pol iticians would be willing to extend support instead of worrying about backlash from the public.

The legal system needed to take initiatives to dispose of cases quickly in a transparent and decisive manner. Further, courts must carefully look at initiators of public interest cases since public interest litigation was used by rival firms to artificia lly stall projects.

A better dispute resolution system would not only save costs but would build faith in the legal system and people would not raise disputes and public interest litigation through apprehension or bad intentions.