Industry hails infra reforms announcements in budget

Narendra Modi's maiden budget has paved way for infrastructure reforms and has created a sense of confidence among investors, who are awaiting removal of structural bottlenecks in projects, industry analysts and India Inc today said hailing announcements.
"The government has laid special focus on development of critical infrastructure that is needed to spur economic growth. This budget promises to address several issues faced by the roads, power and airport sector. We look forward to these announcements being translated into tangible steps for the economy to truly benefit from them," said Vice-chairman of GVK Power and Infrastructure, G V Sanjay Reddy.

Earnest & Young's Tax Partner-Infrastructure Practice, Samir Kanabar said Budget 2014 has showered much awaited reforms in infrastructure sector.
"Finance Minister has made the right noises to scale up investment in the infrastructure sector by paving way for setting up of Infra Trusts by granting them tax exempt/ pass through status and allowing banks long-term funding," he said adding there is hope that reforms engine will keep rolling.
Abhaya Agarwal, Partner & Leader -PPP, E&Y said Modi government has made its intent very clear that attracting private sector in infrastructure creation is the only way out.
"However the government has to tread with caution. It must realize that the PPP models formulated more than 10-15 years ago have increasingly become obsolete," he warned.

India's largest Construction Equipment Manufacturer JCB India's MD & CEO commented that the Budget's focus on infrastructure sector, encouraging banks to lend long term funds to infrastructure sector, extending the benefit of investment allowance to Small and Medium Enterprises and emphasis on manufacturing growth should help revive the capital goods sector.

"While PPP in relation to many new projects has been announced, however, a roadmap for execution of existing held up projects could have helped turn things quickly, he said."
Vineet Agarwal, Managing Director, Transport Corporation of India said its impact of infrastructure on the transportation industry is massive and the Government's plan to accelerate game changing projects like the Diamond quadrilateral, Sagar mala, dedicated expressway on high traffic density roads will help the sector tremendously.

Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, Feedback Infra said the announcement on setting aside a sum of Rs. 500 crore for setting up "3P India" Institution is a welcome step.
Anuj Puri, Chairman & Country Head, JLL India said with the paramount priority to infrastructure, banks will now be encouraged to extend long-term loans for infra projects.
Manish Aggarwal, Partner and Head - Energy and Natural Resources, KPMG said the Budget has been very positive on infrastructure and banks will be encouraged to give loans.
National Head of Transport and Logistics, KPMG in India, Jaideep Ghosh said the Budget will translate in augmenting infrastructure.