Resolve infrastructure issues to revive investments: Economic Survey

"In the current macro-economic environment, to achieve this objective, there is need to address sector-specific issues over the medium to long-term horizon in India... A high level of investment in the infrastructure sector is essential for the overall revival of investment climate," it said.

The recently constituted CCI is expected to resolve issues involving inter-ministerial coordination for the critical infrastructure projects, it added.

Progress of many road and coal projects have suffered due to problems like delays in obtaining environmental clearances, land acquisitions and rehabilitation, the Survey called for suitably addressing the issues in the fast-track mode for achieving the 12th Plan (2012-17) targets.

The Environment Ministry has been asked to relax the condition of mandatory environment clearance (EC) for areas of less than 5 hectare, and not to insist on EC for earth/soil for the highways projects, it said.

All these projects "commence only after obtaining necessary environment clearance for the project whereby the conditions stipulated by the MoEF for borrow areas are adhered to by the concessionaires", it added.

The Survey said the bank credit for major infrastructure projects has moderated to 16.57 per cent during the third quarter of the current fiscal, from the peak levels of 44.60 per cent of 2010-11.

Within infrastructure, power had over 50 per cent share in total credit flow but the growth

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