The Hindu : Business : New impetus to infrastructure

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 17, 2004

Business

Business

New impetus to infrastructure

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 16. Mandated by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, the Planning Commission is working overtime to prepare an overall plan for the development of infrastructure nationwide. Informally, the Commission has set October 15 as the deadline for the preparation of a road map for the core sectors of the economy, which would then be presented to the Prime Minister for approval.

Simultaneously, work is on for preparing the first draft of the mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Plan by November 15 so that a final draft could be presented for Cabinet approval by mid-December. Once such approval is received, the intention is to convene a meeting of the National Development Council by early January.

Road map

Sources in the Planning Commission indicated that once the road map for core sector development and the mid-term appraisal receive the necessary approvals, these would form a major input for the 2005-06 budgetary exercise as financial allocations would have to be provided in the budget for carrying forward the identified projects. To achieve the set deadlines, the Planning Commission has held a series of sectoral meetings in the past few weeks, going through the achievements of each Ministry and the problems they were facing. Till now, such review meetings have been held in the case of power, petroleum, roads, railways, water resources, civil aviation, health and vocational education. In some cases, second and third rounds of meeting have also been held.

Sectoral review

According to the sources, the idea behind the sectoral reviews is to identify the hindrances to progress and eliminate red tape where decisions were being held up. The Power Ministry, for example, complained to the Commission that project appraisals were inordinately delayed because of a number of reasons, including environmental clearances. The suggestion from the Ministry was that like financial advisers posted in the ministries, posts of environmental advisers could be created in select ministries with strict environmental guidelines laid down so that compliance could be easy and clearances fast.

In the roads sector, the sectoral review meetings have resulted in finalising the financing pattern for the third phase of the National Highway Development Project.

It has been agreed that the outlay would be around Rs. 55,000 crores of which Rs. 30,000 crores could come through private initiative while Rs. 25,000 crores could come from the budget.

The second segment would be so divided that half would be in the form of gross budgetary support and the balance would be through external financing.

"The entire exercise is in line with the Prime Minister's stated intention to have time-bound plans and programmes so that the country could have a world-class infrastructure within a specified time frame,'' the sources said.

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