The Hindu Business Line : A new roadblock

After all the planning and the rhetoric on the next stage of physical infrastructure that the booming economy requires, the Government once again shows itself incapable of acting with speed when it comes to project clearances. A Parliamentary Committee on Energy noted the delays on fund allocations to the much publicised mega power projects that were supposed to highlight the UPA Government’s commitment to making up for the deficits it had inherited in 2004. Now ther e is news that the bidding process for highway projects is often delayed by three to five weeks even at the initial stage. As it is, a proposal took 17 months to get awarded. Now with every project bid to be first vetted by a Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC) that takes five weeks to do its job, new highway projects will take that much more time to reach the work stage.

An inter-ministerial affair, the PPPAC, which was set up in October 2005, appears like a new-grown hedge in the steeplechase that every project bidder must scramble over to reach the finishing line. At a time when the booming economy requires economy and efficiency in official procedures, New Delhi appears set in creating new hurdles. As it is the national highway projects have been dogged by one constraint or other be it law and order, problems of land acquisition, environmental clearance, or coordination with public utilities vis-À-vis water pipes and electricity lines, besides, as the Department of Road Transport and Highways notes in its report for 2006-07, “very poor” performance by contractors.

The PPPAC should, in fact, help New Delhi showcase the public-private partnership scheme and hasten private sector involvement in the build-operate-transfer projects that are the key to rapid road development. The growth of highways with an eye to future needs is well recognised as the most critical element for sustained development. China lost no time in not only improving existing roads but also creating high-capacity networks on an on-going basis. Given that India’s road traffic has been growing at 15 per cent a year, that roads accounted for 65 per cent of total freight and 86 per cent of passenger traffic in 2003-04, and that National Highways account for just 2 per cent of all roads but carry 40 per cent of total road traffic, New Delhi should minimise the need for clearances.

Clearly, the Prime Minster’s Committee on Infrastructure (COI) must look into the PPPAC delays and take remedial measures. At the other end, contractors must be made accountable, on pain of punitive action, for shoddy work. For decades and after every monsoon, India has turned into a potholed economy; it cannot do so any longer.

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