He said that good roads were essential element of infrastructure for providing industry and agriculture with the connectivity to markets for growth in production and trade which improve the quality of life of citizens.
“It is necessary to demonstrate that the award, construction and operation of these (highways) projects is based on a fair and transparent approach which eliminates any suspicion of favouratism or what might be described as crony capitalism,” PM said at the conference of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in National Highways here on Monday.
He further said that for a large road building programme, “efficiency, economy, competition and transparency are vital touchstones that should be used for judging our level of success.
He said that government would double investment in the next five years to speed up development of infrastructure in the country. Dr. Singh said the investment in this sector will rise to about one trillion dollars.
He said this is necessary to achieve the target of 9 per cent growth during the 12th five year plan. Dr. Singh said the private sector has a potential to play an important role in the development of rural infrastructure and will save cost overruns. He said that infusion of private capital will also ease the pressure on limited resources and improve the efficiency of service delivery.
Dr. Singh also said the State Governments have to play a crucial role in developing road infrastructure and the objective of infrastructure development to push the growth can not be achieved without their participation.
The Prime Minister said an Infrastructure Debt Fund is being set up to enhance the work on the long term projects. He added, a high level committee is already examining measures for financing such ambitious projects.
Dr.Singh expressed his happiness that India has attained the second rank in the world among developing countries in attracting private investment for infrastructure projects and for this he complimented the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the concessionaires of the road sector for contributing a significant chunk of this investment.
The government has set a target of upgrading 20 Kilometers National Highways per day. Under the National Highways Development Programme, about 25 thousand Kilometers of roads are proposed to be built through PPP mode during the next three years.
Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Dr. C.P. Joshi said that National Highways Development Programme had grown many fold.
The Minister said that out of 71,000 kilometers, projects for about 16,000 kilometers had been completed so far and about 15,000 kilometers were in different stages of implementation and award. This leaves about 40,000 kilometers which continue to suffer from neglect. In particular, 20,000 kilometers comprise single lane roads which are mostly in the less developed regions.
Referring to the six-laning of the Golden Quadrilateral which connects the metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru, Dr. Joshi said that Concessions for nearly half the length had already been awarded and the balance would be awarded within the next corridors.
Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia drew attention of the participants to the constraints in carrying out expanded infrastructure development programme for the 12th Plan. He said that public funding would have to focus on programmes where private sector participation was unlikely.
Minister of State for RT&H Jitin Prasada in his address said that the investment in National Highway Development has increase manifold and private sector can also play a very important role in highways development. The Minister of State for RT&H, Dr. Tusharbhai A Chaudhary in his concluding remarks welcomed the active participation of private sector in the infrastructure development in the country.