The Hindu Business Line : Set up autonomous regulators for rail, road, shipping: CII

POINTING out that improvement in infrastructure and removing bottlenecks is the key to attaining higher growth rate and attracting foreign investments to India, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has charted out recommendations for improvement of the vital sectors such as roads and highways, seaports, railways, civil aviation, tourism, water and the housing sector.

The CII has called for focus on road construction and road services such as safety, parking facilities, motels, medical facilities, mobile clinics, business centres and food kiosks. The chamber has also suggested the setting up of an independent regulatory authority for the road sector, and also the strengthening of dispute resolution mechanism.

It has also recommended following of strict pre-qualification criteria and tendering process to ensure timely completion of projects with high quality and introduction of an integrated toll system.

In the shipping sector also, the CII has recommended segregation of the roles of policy-making, regulation and operation. It has said that policy-making should be vested with the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, regulation with a separate regulatory authority and operations with private sector.

The CII has also recommended corporatisation of major ports within a time bound period, and moving towards `landlord port concept.'

It has suggested converting port trusts into `landlord' ports, wherein the Government will hold the ownership, but lease out port terminals to the private sector for operation and management. It has called for a National Port Policy to address all the critical aspects, in order to provide a direction to port reforms.

For the Railways, the CII has called for increased budgetary allocation, rationalisation of the tariff structure and setting up of an independent and autonomous rail tariff regulatory authority.

For civil aviation, the CII has called for a comprehensive policy, setting out a long-term reform agenda and prioritise building up of three to four world-class airports.

To provide a boost to the tourism industry, the CII has recommended setting up of an autonomous National Tourism Authority on the lines of the Singapore Tourism Board and Malaysia Tourism Board, to market India.

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