Infra investments: Getting the mojo back

Motivating private capital back to investing in infra is the need of the hour

What should be the policy of any new government for the infrastructure sector? Where are the gaps? And what are the reforms needed to plug those gaps?

These are deeply pressing questions today. Between 2007 and 2012, infrastructure investment rose to around 7 per cent of GDP from about 5 per cent for the previous five-year period. A key reason for this jump in infrastructure investment was the role of the private sector, whose share in infra investment rose by 15 per cent compared with the previous five-year period.

In retrospect, that growth was not sustainable because of one serious issue —