Tuesday 20 August 2013

Govt clears 28 investment projects worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore

In order to boost India’s infrastructure sector, the government has cleared 28 big-ticket investment projects worth Rs 1.1 lakh cr, which have been stuck for years for want of numerous government clearances. After intensive project-wise discussions with ministries, special project monitoring group headed by cabinet secretary Ajit Seth has managed to secure these clearances for mega investment projects.

These infrastructure projects include 18 power projects with a generation capacity of 15,636 mw, four highway projects worth Rs 4,400 crore, and Rs 1,200-crore steel plant in Odisha. Further, the coal ministry has also agreed to sign fuel supply agreements for all these projects by August 31. Three railway projects in poorly connected states such as Mizoram, Assam and Chhattisgarh, with an investment outlay of over Rs 7,100 crore, have also got green signal. Moreover, the government also cleared Delhi airport aerocity project worth Rs 12,000 crore and Petroleum distillation units, being set up by Bharat Petroleum, worth Rs 1,419 crore.

The government has identified the development of infrastructure as a most crucial one to boost the economy’s growth. Recently, it has set up the Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) to clear the bottlenecks holding back mega infrastructure projects. However, the committee met just once a month and didn't have the bandwidth to resolve ground-level issues holding up private sector investments.  Thereby, the government set up special cell, which is  meant to supplement CCI's efforts in cases where the problem can be involved by way of discussions between ministries also acts as the CCI's secretariat and has now been tasked with monitoring the progress of projects cleared earlier by CCI. Meanwhile, for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the government has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector.

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