Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today outlined the government’s agenda for pushing the infrastructure sector projects with specific targets for 2012-13 to take the GDP growth rate to 9 per cent at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting chaired by him.
Two new major ports in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, three-four international airports, airline hub policy, elevated freignt corridor in Mumbai and bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad are part of the plan announced today after the meeting.
The meeting was attended by ministers and secretaries of key infrastructure ministries - power, railways, roads, shipping, civil aviation and coal.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia made a presentation on the targets set after extensive consultations with the concerned ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Singh pointed out at the meeting, “After achieving remarkably fast 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 global economy is passing through difficult times. This has affected us. It is therefore imperative to take measures to give a boost to our economy.”
He said that there was a need to revive business and investor sentiment and to give a thrust to investment, both public and private.
“There is a need to create an atmosphere which is conducive to investment and to removing any bottlenecks to growth. The government is not only aware of the challenges but is committed to taking the necessary measures to reverse the situation and revive India's growth story. These will turnaround India and take it back to a growth path of 9%,” said Singh.
The prime minister outlined that in this context, infrastructure investment played a major role. “In the short term, it boosts investment rates across the economy. In the long run, it will remove supply constraints that affect industry and trade,” he said adding that achieving targets in key infrastructure sectors was key to success and will inspire confidence about the overall economic growth rate.
For the ports sector, the target for FY 12-13 consists of a total of 42 projects costing Rs 14,500 crore and a capacity of 244 million tonne a year -- three times what was achieved last year.
Two projects for brand new major ports will be taken up during the year in East Coast (Andhra Pradesh) and West Bengal. The total investment will be Rs 20,500 crore for a capacity of 116 million tonne a year.
The total capacity which will be awarded this year will be 360 million tonne a year with an investment of Rs 35,000 crore.
In case of roads, total road length to be awarded in 2012-13 has been fixed at 9,500 km -- an increase of 18.7% over last year and the investment will rise by 73.6%.
The PMO said after the meeting that 4,360 km of roads will be awarded for maintenance under the OMT (Operate, Maintain, Transfer) system for the first time.
In the civil aviation sector, work on Itanagar airport would be commenced by AAI costing Rs 2100 crores and three new greenfield projects will be awarded in 2013-14. These will be at Navi Mumbai, Goa and Kannur.
As per the targets set today, new international airports will be declared in 3 or 4 of the following cities -- Lucknow, Varanasi, Coimbatore, Trichy and Gaya.
It has also been decided that an airline hub policy would be finalised and hubs would be operationalised at Delhi and Chennai in FY13.
By end-July 2012, additional PPP projects would be finalised for 10-12 existing airports and for 10-12 greenfield airports, said the PMO. These would be awarded during the year and PPP in airport operations would be explored.
In power, the capacity addition target for this year has been fixed at 18,000 MW, including 2,000 MW to be added by the Kudankulam Atomic Power Project. The power generation target is 930 billion units, an increase of 6.2%.
In case of coal, the PMO said that Coal India Limited will disptach 470 million tonne of coal to all sectors -- an increase of 8.8%. Of this, it will dispatch 347 million tonne coal to the power sector in FY13 against 312 million tonne dispatched last year – an increase of 11.2 per cent.
For railways, the targets fixed are only for PPP projects. The regular operational and investment targets are known.
As per the target set today, Dedicated Freight Corridor - PPP for the Sonnagar-Dankuni stretch will be awarded in 2012-13 and Elevated Rail Corridor, Mumbai with a total investment of Rs 20,000 crores will be awarded in awarded in 2012-13.
With this, the concessions for two locomotive manufacturing units at Madhepura and Marhowra will also be awarded.
Station redevelopment of 4 to 5 station will be done in PPP mode and proposal and approach for a high speed corridor (bullet train) from Mumbai to Ahmedabad will be finalised.
Read Prime Minister's closing remarks at the meeting to finalise infrastructure targets for FY13
