The Planning Commission has asked infrastructure ministries to try to achieve higher targets in 2011-12 than what they did in each of the first four years of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.
The panel, which is tasked with the responsibility to fix annual milestones for the infrastructure sector, has set higher targets for power, road, shipping and railway ministries for the current financial year against the achievement in the previous fiscal, data put on the commission’s website show. However, some of the ministries were unwilling to accept them due to past experiences of non-achievement of the targets, government officials told FE.
Power ministry has been asked to add 17,601 megawatt (mw) electricity generation capacity during the year against the previous year’s addition of 12,161 Mw, which itself was 8,000 mw lower than the target for that year.
Shipping ministry is required to award 23 terminal development projects at major ports to add 231.63 million tonne (MT) capacity during 2011-12. Last year, shipping ministry could award only nine projects, and added 140 MT capacity in last four years.
The goals were set during a series of meetings between senior officials of the ministries and Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi since April 2011.
Power and shipping ministries were reluctant to accept the steep targets as their performance has been lower than required in the past, government officials said. ?Power ministry had said that at the maximum 7,675 mw generation capacity could be added during the year,? a senior official in Planning Commission said. Shipping ministry was also apprehensive of achieving the targets as private firms unable to qualify for the works often go to courts, holding up projects, he added.
On the other hand, road and railway ministries were given targets in line with the projections submitted by them to the Planning Commission.
Road ministry has to award projects for construction of 7,300 km of national highways, while railway ministry has to increase its freight loading to 993 MT against 921 MT achieved last year.
Sector observers feel the government’s intention behind the move is to end the current Plan with a good performance in infrastructure, which has been identified as a key driver to economic growth.
The government has estimated that $1 trillion investment will be needed in the infrastructure sector during the Twelfth Plan (2012-17).
?The government is in a Catch 22 situation with the ministries reluctant to accept high targets,? said Amrit Pandurangi, senior director for infrastructure at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, India.
The Commission has also asked the railways to award long-pending projects to manufacture locomotives and coaches by September this year.
Though bidders have been shortlisted for an electric locomotive factory at Madhepura and a diesel locomotive factory at Marhaura, both in Bihar, and a coach unit at Kanchrapara in West Bengal last year, the financial bids have not been called as the national transporter is revising the bid documents to safeguard its interest.
?Meeting this deadline does not seem possible as the process of due diligence is still on,? a senior railway ministry official said.