Encouraged by the on-target spends on infrastructure during the (current) 1th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission will double outlay for infrastructure for the 12th (2013-2018) Plan to $1 trillion, Mr B. K. Chaturvedi, Member, Planning Commission, said on Friday.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the ‘Ports and Maritime Investment and Business Conclave', organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Chaturvedi observed that the outlay for infrastructure for the 11th Plan period was $514 billion. “This target will be met,” he said.

The higher spends in the next Plan period will be necessitated by the anticipated investments, primarily driven by the private sector, in three areas — power, railways and ports.

Power capacity

The 12th Plan target for power generation capacity addition will be 100,000 MW, Mr Chaturvedi said. Noting that in the current year the country will be adding a record 15,000 MW, he said that investments in the sector are picking up.

Asked if capacity additions in the power sector did not consistently fall way below targets, Mr Chaturvedi observed that the targets were “ambitious”. He said that the Planning Commission did not want to set low, easily achievable targets and then “pat ourselves on the back.”

(The 10 th Plan target was 41,000 MW, against which the sector achieved 21,220 MW. The initial target for the 11th Plan was 78,577 MW, which was later pared to 62,374 MW. The achievement is likely to be substantially below the target.)

Mr Chaturvedi said that in the 12th Plan, there will be more private participation in the transmission segment.

Activity will also pick up in the port sector, particularly as two segments are ripe for investments - non-major ports and new berths in major ports (expansion).

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