This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Tuesday, November 15, 2011.
- India gets about 100 hours of rainfall out of the 8,760 hours in a year, yet faces water shortage as the country has no facility to harvest rain water.
- Despite having 500 billion tonne of coal reserves, India has tapped only 1%, even as fuel crunch pervades across power facilities.
- Infrastructure in India is developed in such a haphazard manner that it ends up creating bottlenecks instead of facilitating smooth operations for stakeholders.
This was the theme that emerged at a seminar on infrastructure at a World Economic Forum summit, where industry participants felt that answer to the current woes lay in developing infrastructure holistically, or in totality, rather than in bits and parts.
“We waste $45 billion worth of efficiency because of our non-holistic view on the infrastructure development. This figure is expected to grow at least three times in the next 10 years,” Ravi Sharma, CEO, Adani Power, said.
Infrastructure development comprises growth in the healthcare, information technology, water, housing and real estate, education, energy and logistics industries.
James Stewart, chairman - global infrastructure, KPMG, UK, said, “While each and every sector contributes a certain level of growth, exceeding thresholds is only possible if the developments are looked at in entirety.”
Harpinder Singh Narula, chairman, DSC India, felt the government or the planners do not understand that the end user (public) has to be a participant in this. “The government can either take an inclusive or a top-down approach. However, adopting the latter leaves no possibility of taking a holistic view and that’s what we see happening in India,” he said.
Ankur Bhatia, executive director, Bird Group, said infrastructure development in India largely happens when ‘push comes to a shove’ kind of a situation.
“In most cases, we are developing infrastructure much behind of when it is required,” he said. “The aviation industry caters to 75 million people and a lot of them are repeat travellers, which mean only 30-35 million are taking to the skies in a market which is 300 million big. The primary reason is while people have the capacity to pay, a lot of destinations are not connected by flights.”
Participants also blamed government paralysis, bureaucratic stonewalling of projects and corruption for the infrastructure mess.
“The government has, by necessity, given lots of space to the private sector,” said Rajiv Lall, CEO of IDFC. “But having unleashed this genie, it has struggled to keep pace with it ... enthusiasm and skills of private developers far outpace the government’s ability to provide support.”
Ajit Gulabchand, the CMD of Hindustan Construction Cosaid there is a “huge slowdown” in infrastructure-building. “Scams have created a lull in decision-making, people are afraid to take decisions,” he said. With Reuters, adding “India has hurt itself by stalling projects.”
Infrastructure developers complain that the government has not kept its side of its bargain by failing to create a policy framework to allow the sector to grow.
“There is no sector where the policies are consistent, where policies are long term, where policies are really thought out,” said Sharma of Adani Power.
With Reuters
- India gets about 100 hours of rainfall out of the 8,760 hours in a year, yet faces water shortage as the country has no facility to harvest rain water.
- Despite having 500 billion tonne of coal reserves, India has tapped only 1%, even as fuel crunch pervades across power facilities.
- Infrastructure in India is developed in such a haphazard manner that it ends up creating bottlenecks instead of facilitating smooth operations for stakeholders.
This was the theme that emerged at a seminar on infrastructure at a World Economic Forum summit, where industry participants felt that answer to the current woes lay in developing infrastructure holistically, or in totality, rather than in bits and parts.
“We waste $45 billion worth of efficiency because of our non-holistic view on the infrastructure development. This figure is expected to grow at least three times in the next 10 years,” Ravi Sharma, CEO, Adani Power, said.
Infrastructure development comprises growth in the healthcare, information technology, water, housing and real estate, education, energy and logistics industries.
James Stewart, chairman - global infrastructure, KPMG, UK, said, “While each and every sector contributes a certain level of growth, exceeding thresholds is only possible if the developments are looked at in entirety.”
Harpinder Singh Narula, chairman, DSC India, felt the government or the planners do not understand that the end user (public) has to be a participant in this. “The government can either take an inclusive or a top-down approach. However, adopting the latter leaves no possibility of taking a holistic view and that’s what we see happening in India,” he said.
Ankur Bhatia, executive director, Bird Group, said infrastructure development in India largely happens when ‘push comes to a shove’ kind of a situation.
“In most cases, we are developing infrastructure much behind of when it is required,” he said. “The aviation industry caters to 75 million people and a lot of them are repeat travellers, which mean only 30-35 million are taking to the skies in a market which is 300 million big. The primary reason is while people have the capacity to pay, a lot of destinations are not connected by flights.”
Participants also blamed government paralysis, bureaucratic stonewalling of projects and corruption for the infrastructure mess.
“The government has, by necessity, given lots of space to the private sector,” said Rajiv Lall, CEO of IDFC. “But having unleashed this genie, it has struggled to keep pace with it ... enthusiasm and skills of private developers far outpace the government’s ability to provide support.”
Ajit Gulabchand, the CMD of Hindustan Construction Cosaid there is a “huge slowdown” in infrastructure-building. “Scams have created a lull in decision-making, people are afraid to take decisions,” he said. With Reuters, adding “India has hurt itself by stalling projects.”
Infrastructure developers complain that the government has not kept its side of its bargain by failing to create a policy framework to allow the sector to grow.
“There is no sector where the policies are consistent, where policies are long term, where policies are really thought out,” said Sharma of Adani Power.
With Reuters
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