Infrastructure Bottlenecks In India Addressed At Indo-german Business Summit
Participating in a discussion on "Opportunities and Challenges for Infrastructure Development in India", held yesterday as a part of the Indo-German Business Summit organized by Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) at the Hannover Technology Fair 2006 which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh and the German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, Dr. Ajay Dua, Secretary (Industrial Policy & Promotion), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, emphasized that adequate efforts were being made to address the infrastructural bottlenecks in India.
Recalling that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had indicated that an investment of about US $ 150 billion is needed to bring the physical infrastructure of roads, ports and electricity in India to a satisfactory level, Dr. Dua observed that several measures had been initiated to catalyse the required investment. As against about 1.8 kilometers of new roads built daily till 2004, India is now building over 4 kilometers of road every day. Almost 6000 kilometers of national highway, connecting the four metropolitan cities, are ready and by 2008, North-South-East-West Corridor would be ready. To improve the rail connectivity, new freight corridors are being planned and the first phase of the Delhi Metro had been completed. He was optimistic even in the electricity industry, much greater public-private participation on BOT basis would be forthcoming now that the basic issues had been addressed in the Indian Electricity Act of 2003.
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He urged the German industries to invest in the five coalfield mega power projects of 4000 MW each which were recently advertised on behalf of India. German companies like ABB, Siemens, Voith etc. have considerable experience of India and arer world leaders of electricity industry. FDI of 100% is now allowed in India in all segments of the industry viz., generation and transmission.
Dr. Dua reiterated that the basic infrastructure of banking and capital market already existed in India with 23 stock exchanges and several thousand bank branches which were being constantly computerized and interlinked. The telecom infrastructure, particularly the mobile phones and broad bands were fast expanding and Indian airports and sea ports were being modernized with private investment now being significantly increased, he said.
In particular, Dr. Ajay Dua mentioned that the industrial infrastructure of clusters, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Industrial Parks were being upgraded and systematically expanded. About 400 SME clusters and 2000 artisan clusters accounting for 60% of India's manufacturing exports were being for modernization, while 14 functional SEZs had been approved, along with 74 multi product zones. The Indian fiscal laws were being amended, Dr. Dua informed, in order to give greater concessions to private developers wanting to develop infrastructure.
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