By IANS,
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday said award of infrastructure projects should be done in a fair and transparent manner so as to dispel any doubts of “favouritism” by the government or its agencies.
“We must remember that these are public projects where public interest must be foremost in our mind,” the prime minister told a conference on ‘Challenges and opportunities in public-private partnership in national highways’.
“It is necessary to demonstrate that the award, construction and operation of these projects is based on a fair and transparent approach which eliminates any suspicion of favouritism or what might be described as crony capitalism,” he added.
The United Progressive Alliance government’s second tenure has been marred by a slew of scandals, hurting its image.
Senior cabinet ministers have said that various government agencies were now hesitant to give out procurement orders for fear of their decisions being questioned later.
The prime minister said good road infrastructure was crucial to achieving nine percent growth, targeted for the next Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17), and adequate investment would be made towards that.
“Infrastructure will play a key role in achieving our growth target of of nine percent. Our effort is to double the investment of $500 billion in the 11th Five Year plan to around $1 trillion in the 12th plan.”
India has a national highway network with a total length of over 71,000 km, of which about 20,000 km of national highways still operate with only a single lane.
“A time-bound programme for widening these roads to two-lane standards would be taken up through turn-key contracts that would ensure speedy and cost-effective outcomes,” said the prime minister.
According to Road Transport and Highways Minister C.P. Joshi, the government will award contracts under public-private partnership to lay around 7,800 km of national highways worth an estimated Rs.50,000 crore ($11.1 billion) by the end of this year.
“Contracts worth Rs.21,000 crore have already been awarded in the first four months,” he said, hoping that the target of 20 km of national highways every day would be met.