BackInfrastructure sectors fall short of targets, finds ministry report
Infrastructure sectors fall short of targets, finds ministry report
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New Delhi: Several sectors such as highways, railways, shipping and ports failed to meet the targets set for themselves in the last fiscal, an appraisal of their performance between April 2009 and March 2010 by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation has found.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) widened or upgraded 2,674km of highways in 12 months, some 15.5% lower than the target of 3,165km.
The highway authority, which has been tasked with administering the National Highway Development Programme, spent only Rs18,340 crore, some 39% lower than its target expenditure.
An NHAI official, who did not want to be named, said the expenditure target had not been met because the authority had barely been able to award projects till November. Projects couldn’t be awarded because of issues over bid criteria and other reasons.
“If we had managed some awards then we may have reached 75-80% (of the total expenditure)," said the official, adding that there was a lag between the award of projects and expenditure in public-private partnerships.
The railways recorded a shortfall of 2.01 million tonnes (mt) in freight traffic carried, while major ports handled 560.97 mt of cargo—some 20.32 mt less than what was expected.
Overall power generation in April 2009-March 2010 was 771.55 billion units, 2.3% lower than the target for that period, said the performance appraisal report seen by Mint. Crude oil production was 11.4% below the target.
To be sure, despite not meeting their annual targets, most of these sectors—barring refinery production—beat their performance of the previous year.
Refinery production for the year fell by a scant 4 basis points to 160.12 mt. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
NHAI, on the other hand, managed to upgrade 470.94km more than it achieved in April 2008-March 2009.
Crude oil production fell 11.4%, while natural gas production was 8.8% below the annual target, the report found.
The ministry of statistics and programme implementation typically submits such reports to the Prime Minister and his cabinet.
The report comes even as the country plans to ramp up its infrastructure spending to attain the Rs20 trillion target for infrastructure investments between 2007 and 2012.
santosh.j@livemint.com
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