NDA moves on the roads, and on airwaves

VAJPAYEE'S BUDGETS

While critics will carp on the NDA's successes and failures, most agree infrastructure has been a feather in the government's cap.

In telecom, teledensity has doubled in the last 5 years, thanks to the government taking bold policy decisions "" one to move operators to revenue-share regime in 1999, and the other on issuing a unified license to end litigation. Tariffs have fallen to between a fifth (ISD) to an eighth (STD and local cellular).

Though the Prime Minister's ambitious highways program has run into problems with local mafia and the state governments (who are not clearing land for the roads) in various places, the Centre has completed multi-laning of 2,395 km of the 5,846 km project.

The Ministry of Roads expects completion of around 95 per cent of the 5,846-km first phase to be completed by December 2004. The second leg of the NHDP project -the 7,300-km North South-East West corridor project would be completed by 2007.

The experience in the power sector hasn't been as good, but with state governments entering into agreements with the center, and beginning to restructure their electricity operations (usually with unbundling their SEBs), a start has been made.

A new electricity act is in place, and promises to revolutionise the sector, though it will take a few years for telecom-style open competition to happen in the sector.

With the Prime Minister deciding on open skies policy with Asean countries, and the Naresh Chandra Committee's also plumping for an open sky policy, allowing foreign airlines to pick equity in Indian aviation companies and permitting private domestic carriers to fly to other countries, the sector's also set for a complete overhaul.