In what could boost the sentiments of the investors in the infrastructure sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced the infrastructure targets for 2013-14, pushing forth a fresh investment target of ₹1.15 lakh crore for Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the next six months.
The new infrastructure targets are spread across civil, aviation, ports, railways, roads and power sectors "to ramp up investment in infrastructure to revive investor sentiment."
The proposals include two international airports in Bhubneswar and Imphal, and Mumbai elevated rail corridor worth ₹30,000 crore and a ₹40,000 Power and Transmission project. An inter-ministerial group of Railways, Finance and Planning is also being set up to monitor the backlog in sanctioned railway projects worth over ₹2,00,000 crore.
The meeting to finalise these projects for 2013-14 was attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Secretaries of key infrastructure ministries like power, coal, railways, roads, shipping and civil aviation.
Singh also set a target to build eight Greenfield Airports (two in Mumbai) in PPP mode this year. There are 50 new low cost small airports in 11 states to be taken up by Airports Authority of India.
In the background of the railway bribery scam (in which former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's nephew was arrested), Singh promises to accelerate in creating a Rail Tariff Authority.
The Power Ministry has been asked to work with Planning Commission and Finance Ministry to resolve remaining issues in the power sector and improve generation and transmission capacity. The award of road projects is to get expedited with 'focused attention on Expressway' highways.
Cabinet also approved two new PPP ports at Sagar in West Bengal and Durgarajapatnam in Andhra Pradesh to be awarded worth ₹10,000 each.
