| Thus, the country will have a fully operational Competition Commission by the end of this financial year. The Commission, set up five years ago under an Act of Parliament but which got caught in a legal tangle, will function not only as a market regulator to prevent anti-competitive practices, but will also serve as an expert body with advisory and advocacy functions. The target date for completing the necessary legislative process to achieve this goal is March 2008. Also on the government's agenda for 2007-08 is selecting a chairman and other members of the Competition Commission and the Competition Appellate Tribunal and provide them other staff and infrastructure facilities. So, one may expect some action on this front in the coming months. |
| What about basic infrastructure? The most detailed account of all the infrastructure programmes is provided for the development of roads. It refers to a seven-year national highways development project being implemented in seven phases from 2005. A total investment of Rs 2,27,000 crore (about 12 per cent of the total investment needs estimated for the entire infrastructure sector in the next five years) has already been allocated for this project. Contrary to the hype associated with the national highways development programme during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it seems that the UPA government has initiated some major work on the roads sector without much fanfare. |
| In addition to the golden quadrilateral project, which is almost complete, the work on constructing around 7,300 kilometres of north-south and east-west corridors has been awarded for most of the stretches and its completion is expected by 2009. Not resting on its laurels, the UPA government has already approved the four-laning and upgrading of over 5,000 kilometres of national highways at a total cost of over Rs 28,000 crore. Once again, this target date for completing this project is 2009. |
| Another 6,500 kilometres of national highways have been identified for four-laning at a cost of Rs 33,000 crore, for which detailed project reports are being finalised. The project to widen the 6,500 kilometres of national highways into six lanes at a cost of Rs 41,000 crore has already started and will be completed by 2012. There are more such projects. In short, a lot of activities on developing the national highways have been planned for the next few years. |
| The railways too have geared up for some new projects to set up dedicated freight corridors for the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata sectors. In the coal sector, where not much activity had been seen in the last few years, 75 new blocks have been allocated for development and 81 more blocks are to be exploited by permissible end users. In other words, Coal India Limited is not going to be the only agency responsible for developing new coal blocks. |
| It is true that a few sectors have not received the kind of attention that they deserve. There are no notable projects in the ports sector, except the controversial Sethusamudram project (which too is expected to be completed in 2009) and the international container transshipment terminal at Cochin. Projects to modernise airports in Delhi, Mumbai and in other major cities have been mentioned in detail and the timelines show that most of them would be ready by 2008-09. |
| The report's sketchy account of the power sector is understandable as the record in the just concluded Tenth Plan is nothing to write home about. But there are indications that the shortfall in the Tenth Plan target for power capacity addition is likely to be made good in the first two years of the Eleventh Plan, i.e. by March 2009. For good reasons, the report is reticent about the controversial special economic zones and points out that issues concerning land acquisition and rehabilitation need to be resolved before these could gain momentum. |
| It should be obvious to anyone that Manmohan Singh's report is a political document. Most of the projects mentioned in the report are expected to be completed by 2009, when the next general elections are due to be held. But two points should be noticed. One, the report is a reminder to his own party people and ministerial colleagues that the agenda for economic resurgence will make a difference only if the people of this country see some visible change in the basic infrastructure around them. Two, going by the long list of projects that the government has lined up in the past three years and assuming that it can implement them within the promised target date, India's growth prospects will cease to be a prisoner of its creaking infrastructure sector. Instead, a resurgent infrastructure sector will propel growth even faster. |
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