New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) Investor confidence in India can be boosted if bottlenecks such as lack of forward-looking project preparations and a sound land-acquisition process that stall key infrastructure and energy projects are removed, a report study said Friday.
According to a report by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and research firm Ernst and Young, 78 projects were delayed in road and transport sector followed by 47 in power and 31 in oil and gas sector.
“There is a need to change the way we approach infrastructure development. The change required is needed across planning, bidding and execution of infrastructure projects,” said Abhaya Agarwal, partner and public private partnership leader, Ernst and Young.
“More thorough and forward-looking project preparation and a sound land-acquisition process can go a long way in facilitating successful implementation of projects,” she added.
The report – Accelerating Implementation of Infrastructure Projects – said that infrastructure facilities like roads, railways and ports have under-achieved their investment targets in the Eleventh Five Year Plan by 11 percent, 23 percent and 54 percent respectively.
The study showed that railways was far lagging behind in infrastructure development, as it had only added 1,750 km of new lines, from 2006 to 2011. In the same period, China has added 4,000 km, excluding a high-speed network of around 10,000 km.
It also emphasised upon mounting pressure on handling port traffic.
India’s 13 major ports and 60 operational non-major ports handle 95 percent of the country’s external trade by volume and 70 percent by value.
Port traffic has increased at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.1 percent to reach 884.6 million tones with an average utilisation of 90 percent, as compared to the international average of 70 percent.
The report also called for the need for strengthening national highways.
It said that the national highways only constitute around 1.7 percent of the road network, but carry 40 percent of the total road traffic. Yet, only 24 percent of the country’s national highways are four-lane and meet the required standards.
