Progress = Will to act

I had a Eureka moment about ten days ago. I was chatting with an infrastructure practitioner on the lack of serious progress in the key infrastructure sectors like power and roads. *It could be blamed on overactive or inactive ministers, bureaucratic stonewalls or simply a depressed investment climate. Here is what seems to be the ultimate truth: The key reason for progress, or lack of it, in any sector is simply one, and that is political will.

 

If there is a will to get the nuclear deal through, it will get done, no matter what the odds are. And the odds on the deal were huge, given the opposition from partners of the ruling coalition. If there is a will to grant aloan waiver of Rs 70,000 crore to farmers, it will be granted, no matter how much noise the bankers or the economists make. Similarly, if there is political will to issue a unique identity card to all citizens, despite reservations in some quarters, it will happen. If there is political will for alateral induction into the Unique Identification Authority of India from the corporate sector — that too with acabinet rank position — the appointment will come through. If there is a will to spend thousands of crores in a poor state like Uttar Pradesh on carving elephants and shrines, they will get spent.

 

If there is a political will to get the roads sector moving, it will see action.

 

The portfolio will be handed over to asmart minister who is known to deliver. The minister — Kamal Nath, in this case — then announces a specific target. He wants 20 kilometres of road to be built per day. There will not be many people who will bet against him or his target.

 

The reason for tardy progress in so many other sectors in the infrastructure sector then is a lack of will. There can be no other explanation for our pathetic record in ensuring public transport in our cities or power capacity addition, for instance. Capacity addition has always been a fraction of what was required. Peak and average power deficits run in double digits, with most industry insiders admitting that these are grossly underestimated. A delay in the monsoon rains provides a sampler of what is in store if we don’t get our act together — rationing of power through compulsory load shedding, and that too in the country’s capital city. Just imagine what the situation would be in the hinterland! Almost every house in the capital region is connected to an inverter or diesel genset to at least get basic lighting when there is no power. Why is there is no plan to replace these diesel-guzzling contraptions with power plants that would reap economies of scale and would be easier on the environment too? Why has there been no attempt to tap into this purchasing power which is being expended in sub-optimal choices? Why is no one seriously looking for solutions, when a whopping 480 million people of the country are yet to get their first taste of electricity and the pressure on curtailing emissions (through limiting construction of polluting coal-based power plants) is building up? What we have instead are the usual learnt-by-rote statements from power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde since he took over on June 1. He is committed to power for all by 2012, and to rural electrification, and to intensive monitoring of ongoing power generation projects, and so on. As far as one can make out, it seems like a business-as-usual approach with no clear intention of shaking things up — as Kamal Nath has done. There seems to be alack of collective political will to get the power sector moving.

 

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers for why there is a build-up of political will for one particular cause and not for the other. One thing is clear —it is not merely electoral arithmetic!

 

*The government has targeted investment of over $500 billion in the ten key infrastructure sectors in the 11th Plan, which is more than double what was invested in the last Plan. This includes investment in electricity (32 per cent), roads and bridges (15 per cent), telecommunications (13 per cent), railways and MRTS (13 per cent), irrigation (13 per cent), water supply and sanitation (7 per cent), ports (4 per cent) and airports (1.5 per cent), among others, at 2006-07 prices.

 

If there is political will for a lateral induction into the Unique Identification Authority of India from the corporate sector, the appointment will come through