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The slow progress of infrastructure projects is worrying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a meeting of the Committee on Infrastructure will be called shortly to review progress in power, roads, ports, telecom and railways, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said today.
Singh, who today reviewed the progress on projects under the common minimum programme (CMP), found slippages on all fronts and directed immediate review of infrastructure projects in important sectors like power, telecom, roads and railways with an aim to expedite their execution.
In power, capacity addition between April and September has, at 2,895 Mw, been less than a third of the targeted 10,000 Mw.
As a result, the power ministry has scaled down the annual target from 17,000 Mw to 14,000 Mw. The 11th Plan target has also been revised downwards from 78,577 Mw to 71,000 Mw.
In roads, under the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP), deadlines for the first phase of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), involving four-laning of 5,846 km of national highways covering the four metros, have been revised twice.
NHAI officials say even till June 2008, they will be able to complete only 98 per cent of the stretches. This should have been done by 2006. Similarly, only 11 per cent of NHDP’s phase II — which envisages upgrade of national highways connecting north-south and east-west — is complete. Th deadline is December 2008.
In shipping and ports, the process of identifying projects under a programme to enhance private investment has just begun, two years after the National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP) started. This is largely because of delays by the 12 major ports in sending feasibility studies to the Centre.
In the railways, the dedicated rail freight corridor project has been delayed by nearly two years.
The construction of the corridor, which has a deadline of 2012, is yet to begin. Delays are largely the result of differences between the finance ministry and the Ministry of Railways on financing the project.
In telecom, the fights over allotment of spectrum, the radio frequency that enables mobile communications, is holding up crucial decisions.
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