By IANS,
New Delhi : India Monday set quarterly targets for its infrastructure sector during this fiscal in a bid to monitor progress in power generation and building of roads and ports, critical to its economic growth.
“We will be able to tell how much we are targeting and how much we have been able to achieve,” Panning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here.
According to the targets set by the commission, both the central and state governments along with private companies, will add 20,359 MW of power to its present capacity. Of this, 4,126.5 MW will be added by the end of the quarter ending June 2010.
The government had set a target of 14,507 MW of capacity addition in the previous fiscal, but was able to add only 9,585 MW.
For roads and highways, the target is construction of 2,500 km highways in 2010-11, compared to 2,008.93 km in the previous fiscal.
The government had planned to construct 20 km a day but revised it later to 12-13 km a day.
It has set an expenditure of Rs.35,680.86 crore on roads and highways construction against Rs.11,608.50 crore spent a year ago. Under the annual Plan 2010-11, it has provided Rs.22,000 crore to the rural development ministry to develop rural roads.
A total of 21 port upgradation projects are set to be awarded in the current fiscal, with private companies contributing Rs.13,891 crore for projects in which they are partnering state-run agencies.
To cater to the rising demand in air traffic and scale up infrastructure at the country’s key airports, the government wants private firms to invest Rs.2,635 crore in developing airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
The Railways will add about 18,000 wagons, 4,000 coaches and add 1,019 km of new lines during this fiscal to facilitate faster movement of goods and passengers.