Bengaluru: Infrastructure investment has been the Narendra Modi government’s preferred route to boost growth since the pandemic, and that theme continued, with one major exception.
For 2024-25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set a capital expenditure target of Rs 11.11 lakh crore, around 11 per cent higher than the capex outlay of Rs 10 lakh crore for the current fiscal year. For context, the current year’s target is 35 per cent higher than the capex outlay in 2022-23. This would be 3.4 per cent of the GDP, she said.
This means that after years of carrying the burden of infrastructure investment, the government now feels that private sector capex is rebounding and will pick up pace.
Sitharaman said that three new economic railway corridor programmes, for energy, mineral and cement, port connectivity, and high traffic density, will be implemented under the PM Gati Shakti master plan. These will be in addition to the dedicated freight corridors.
The Minister said that expansion of existing airports and development of new ones would continue expeditiously, and so will expansion of metro rail and rapid rail services.
“The aviation sector has been galvanised in the past 10 years. Number of airports have doubled to 149. The rollout of air connectivity to tier-two and tier-three cities under UDAN scheme has been widespread. Indian carriers have proactively placed orders for over 1000 new aircraft,” the Finance Minister said.
Published 02 February 2024, 00:05 IST