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Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said India offered “unlimited” opportunities for investment in infrastructure sector, as the country needed more roads, airports and seaports. “What I am telling the investors here and the government here is that there is a huge opportunity in India, especially in infrastructure,” Chidambaram said in an interview to NDTV.
“There is no other country in the world which requires so many thousand kilometres of road, so many airports, so many seaports, so much more capacity of steel, mining, power. So, I think the opportunities are unlimited,” he said.
Referring to rate of price rise, he said, “inflation has come down sharply in the last two months and I think numbers for April is doing better. In fact, we are talking about core inflation having reached a zero level.”
India requires investment to the tune of $1 trillion in the 12th Five Year Plan ending March 2017 for development of various infrastructure projects.
On functional autonomy to CBI
Chidambaram said the Group of Ministers(GoM) headed by him will work towards giving the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) “functional autonomy”, but at the same time asserted accountability was "important". His comments yesterday came three days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the constitution of the high-powered GoM to finalise a plan of action to secure the autonomy of CBI.
“We will give CBI functional autonomy and we will assure CBI will have a large degree of functional autonomy in matter of investigation," said Chidambaram, who donned a hard hat and an orange colour construction worker suit, after he visited a construction site of the new Crossrail project in east London along with his British counterpart George Osborne.
On corruption
Speaking on the issue of corruption, he said it was not only India's story; in every country corruption allegations were common.
“One minister resigned not because of corruption, but because of an allegation that he interfered with an investigation. The other minister resigned on moral grounds, there is no charge against him yet, no evidence against him yet," he said while speaking about the resignations of Railways Minister Pawan Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar.
“There is no other country in the world which requires so many thousand kilometres of road, so many airports, so many seaports, so much more capacity of steel, mining, power. So, I think the opportunities are unlimited,” he said.
Referring to rate of price rise, he said, “inflation has come down sharply in the last two months and I think numbers for April is doing better. In fact, we are talking about core inflation having reached a zero level.”
India requires investment to the tune of $1 trillion in the 12th Five Year Plan ending March 2017 for development of various infrastructure projects.
On functional autonomy to CBI
Chidambaram said the Group of Ministers(GoM) headed by him will work towards giving the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) “functional autonomy”, but at the same time asserted accountability was "important". His comments yesterday came three days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the constitution of the high-powered GoM to finalise a plan of action to secure the autonomy of CBI.
“We will give CBI functional autonomy and we will assure CBI will have a large degree of functional autonomy in matter of investigation," said Chidambaram, who donned a hard hat and an orange colour construction worker suit, after he visited a construction site of the new Crossrail project in east London along with his British counterpart George Osborne.
On corruption
Speaking on the issue of corruption, he said it was not only India's story; in every country corruption allegations were common.
“One minister resigned not because of corruption, but because of an allegation that he interfered with an investigation. The other minister resigned on moral grounds, there is no charge against him yet, no evidence against him yet," he said while speaking about the resignations of Railways Minister Pawan Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar.
