“Growth in infrastructure will spur Manufacturing sector which forms the bedrock of Indian Economy”, said Gen (Retd) V K Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Government of India at the CII INFRANET 2019 organized today at New Delhi. He stressed on the need to customize global learnings and technologies to meet indigenous needs in India’s Road and Highways sector. He urged CII to engage stakeholders to present new ideas on innovation and revisit PPP model to boost infrastructure growth in the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Nagendra Nath Sinha, IAS, Chairman, National Highways Authority of India, said “Contingent liability of NHAI is 70,000 cr and payout ratio is 25%. NHAI is in a strong position with strong pipeline. However, more budgetary resources are welcome.” He mentioned on contributing to the Jal Shakti Abhiyan through water cultivation mechanism across highway construction. Mr Sinha further iterated NHAI’s commitment to realize USD 5 trillion economy by 2025.
Lauding the Government for declaring FY 2018-19 as the “Year of Construction” for constructing over 10,000 km of highways in FY 2018-19, Mr Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, CII Infrastructure Council & Chairman, Feedback Infra Pvt Ltd suggested to increase share of liquidity to the infrastructure sector, revise PPP model, create more fiscal space for asset creation and build and interlink institutional mechanism for each of roads, railways, airways and ports to make services effective and efficient.
Mr Sameer Gupta, Chairman, CII Northern Region & Chairman & Managing Director, Jakson Group spoke about investors’ sentiment in the roads and highways infrastructure and urged for revival of private investments, strengthen lending institutions, rebalance risk sharing in contracts, set up an independent regulator, and boost the dispute resolution mechanism to improve connectivity.
Mr Parvesh Minocha, Chairman, CII INFRANET 2019 & Chairman, CII Northern Region Committee on Infrastructure & Group Managing Director, Feedback Infra Pvt Ltd, lauded the efforts of Government of India and industry members on making India the fastest highway developer in the world. He recommended to resolve the issue of pending payments and claims, improve shortcomings in Detailed Project Report (DPR) preparation and evolve feedback mechanism in the construction of roads in the country.
A CII-KPMG Report on Roads & Highways Sector – Current Trends and Future Roadmap was also released by General VK Singh and other dignitaries on the dais.
The conference was attended by more than 200 delegates from across the Roads and Highways sector.
4 September 2019
New Delhi