Over $500 billion is required to plug the infrastructure requirements in power, railways, roads, ports and airports during the Eleventh Five Year Plan, says the Economic Survey 2007-08, and this deficit presents the “most critical challenge” to the growth of the economy. While some sectors like telecom are doing well, progress in other critical infrastructure sectors has been rather subdued.
POWER: Power capacity addition during the year, projected at 10,821 mw, is less than the original target of over 16,000 mw. The rate of return of the state power sector, which was a negative 24 per cent in 2006-07 (provisional) is projected to improve to a negative 18 per cent in 2007-08. It is projected to improve to a negative 14.3 per cent in 2008-09. Commercial losses of the state power sector are estimated to be up 27 per cent to Rs 28,825 crore in 2006-07, against Rs 22,734 crore in 2005-06. The losses are projected to decline to Rs 25,701 crore in 2007-08 and then go up again to Rs 26,462 crore in 2008-09.
ROADS: About 96 per cent of the 5,846 km Golden Quadrilateral road network (linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) had been completed by November 2007, says the survey. The 7,300-km long north-south and east-west corridors are expected to be completed by December 2009. These projects are mainly financed by the Rs 2-cess on diesel and petrol.
CIVIL AVIATION: The survey says that a decision has been taken to set up an Airport Economic Regulatory Authority and an appellate tribunal. It also says that that the Kolkata and Chennai airports would be upgraded by June 2010 at a cost of Rs 1,943 crore and Rs 1,808 crore respectively. On the project to modernise 35 non-metro airports, work on 24 airports would be completed by March 2009 while the rest would be done by March 2010.
PORTS: The average turnaround time at the major ports increased marginally from 3.5 days to 3.6 days in 2006-07 and was at 3.79 days in the first half of 2008-09. This compares poorly with a turnaround time of 10 hours in Hong Kong, says the survey.
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE: With urban population set to increase from 30 per cent of total population to 40 per cent in a little over a decade, provision of infrastructure “befitting an urban habitation of a middle-income level country” is critical, says the survey. Lauding the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), it says that 279 projects (as on Jan 2008) involving an investment of 25,287 crore have been approved so far, of which 90 are expected to be completed by December 2008. Proposals for bus rapid transit systems have been approved for Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur, Rajkot, Vijaywada and Vishakapatnam under JNNURM, it adds.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment