Govt scales up target for infra projects by 15-20%

The Narendra Modi-led government has scaled up targets for infrastructure growth in 2015-16 after the NITI Aayog found targets in other sectors have been substantially achieved.

Updated on: May 11, 2015, 24:19:29 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Narendra Modi-led government has scaled up targets for infrastructure growth in 2015-16 after the NITI Aayog found targets in other sectors have been substantially achieved.

The first review of the progress in infrastructure sector taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week found that several projects were on target: work has started picking up in stalled projects, building rural roads and connecting gram panchayats with broadband; power capacity added has exceeded target for the first time in the last 10 years, and renewable has got an unprecedented boost.

The presentation by NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog to Modi, however, showed that the pace of infrastructure building has not picked up, and railways, highways and ports were lagging, due to poor response to public private partnership projects.

NITI Aayog has been tasked by the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) with monitoring infrastructure sectors. “Investment stuck in stalled projects has been in the range of 8-9% of GDP in the last three years, but it improved to 7% of GDP as on December 2014,” the presentation said.

The government subsequently hiked targets by 15-20 % for most of the infrastructure ministries, as indications were that the economy was reviving and investors were showing interest once again, a government official said.

As a result, the rural development ministry has been asked to ensure construction of 26,000 kms of all-weather roads, 20% more than the target for 2014-15. The electricity-for-villages target has been almost doubled from 1,900 in 2014-15, and the PMO wants micro-irrigation to cover 3.7 million hectares of farm land (see graphic).

“Tax-free infrastructure bonds for in rail, road and irrigation projects, as announced in 2015-16 budget will help revitalise the PPP mode of infrastructure development,” a NITI Aayog functionary said. “Also, the government has enhanced public funding for infrastructure sectors such as roads and railways.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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