FM sees more pvt investment in infrastructure

 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that there were some signs of private investment picking up in roads, airports and other infrastructure sectors, but batted for increasing government-led investment at the time of global slowdown.

“The world over, the experience has been that when the going is tough, state institutions have to take the lead. When the going is good, the private sector also has an important role to play,” Jaitley said, addressing a gathering at the Foundation Day of the India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL).

He said that resources deployed by the government in national highways, rural roads and railways have begun to show a visible change. Jaitley said that the private sector has evinced interest in development of infrastructure, such as railways and airports.

“The Railways has now come on the right track. We are inviting the private sector, including foreign investment, into infrastructure. The Railways is going to come up with proposed bids for development of 400 railway stations,” he said.

On the power sector, Jaitley said that 15 states have signed pacts with the Power Ministry for debt recast as part of the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY).

“The power sector is most challenging,” he said, referring to the reforms initiated by the Narendra Modi government to revamp discoms.

Within two months of the announcement of UDAY, a total of 15 out of 29 states and UTs have voluntarily joined the scheme which covers 90 per cent of the total debt of discoms. The states that have joined UDAY are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

 

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