The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, today said that work will be awarded for three new greenfield airports — at Navi Mumbai, Goa and Kannur (Kerala).
“Also, two new hubs will be developed in the country making us a destination as well as a transit point,” he said in his closing remarks at the meeting to finalise the targets for infrastructure — fiscal 2012-13.
The Prime Minister said that works will also be awarded for new international airports at Lucknow, Varanasi, Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Gaya. Acknowledging that the targets were certainly ambitious and impressive, he said, “The challenge now is to work together to achieve these targets. I would urge all the Ministries to go the extra mile in implementing what we have planned. I would expect them to very expeditiously resolve any inter-ministerial differences that might arise as we move forward.”
“After achieving remarkably high growth rates over the past eight years and emerging as the second-fastest growing large economy in the world, we are now running into more turbulent weather…,” the Prime Minister said.
Stating that development of infrastructure would always be an integral part of any strategy for fast economic development, he said that in the short-term, development of infrastructure will boost investment rates across the economy. In the long run, it will remove the supply constraints that affect industry and trade.
For roads, the plan is to award 9,500 km for construction this year and over 4,000 km for maintenance under the new system. For the Railways, the plan is to award work on the Elevated Rail Corridor in Mumbai, two new locomotive manufacturing units and the public-private-partnership (PPP) stretch of the dedicated freight corridor, in addition to re-developing four or five stations through PPP.