End of paralysis or posturing: centre to push power and transport sectors!
Wake up call?
New Delhi: The centre has decided to accelerate major transport and power projects in the current financial year, which immediately led to the buoying of stocks in infrastructure companies. But it is yet to be seen how intent the government really is. Or is the government just trying to give an impression of having got over its ‘policy paralysis’, a phrase that is now becoming a cliché even in the international press! The fact is that even a backward economy like Bihar has managed to post high growth purely on the basis of growth obtained on these sectors.
While the government may be able to take fruitful measures in the transport sector, the Indian power sector is stuck in a tangle of its own making and perhaps lies at the core of the ‘paralysis’. The problem begins at the level of the raw material coal, access to it, its timely transport to the production sites, not to mention the grid networks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India aims to award 9,500 kms of road projects in the fiscal year to end-March 2013. His government also plans to commission three new airports, he said. However, experts remained unconvinced the government’s latest move would revive economic growth as little was done to change conditions on the ground that have slowed development, such as land acquisition and environmental clearances. A dedicated freight route for the railways is another promising area taken up by the government.
India faces the challenge of building infrastructure almost from scratch and to grow at a faster clip without stoking inflation. The government has penciled in an investment of about $1 trillion in the sector over next five years.
In a meeting on Wednesday, held after the country’s economic growth slumped to its lowest level in nine years in the first three months of 2012, the government tried to respond to sharp criticism of its economic management. Slow decision making in the government in the wake of a slew of corruption scandals is often held responsible for choking growth and drive to become an industrial nation.
This excuse is being paraded in the media time and again and is borrowed straight from the bureaucracy and the government, and is really a dead end of sorts. It raises the absurd question if corruption should be allowed to go on, and even whether it leads to efficiency in the working of the government. The two facts that stand out in today’s India are – on the one hand, on a typical day, a number of thermal plants in the country have no more than four day’s of coal stocks, and on the other the country is deeply involved in questioning the wisdom behind the planning commission’s 40 lakh expenditure on toilets in its Delhi building. This does indeed indicate the level of both governmental action as well as public discourse in the country!