Tweet: Hardware to operating software: Successful rural roads program leads govt to mull purchasing 80,000 minibuses to connect 125,000 villages.

Tweet: Will be great boost to rural entrepreneurship if govt designs financial scheme for 80,000 minibuses on rural roads as self-employed scheme.

Country roads, connectivity and commerce: The central government, in association with states, will purchase a fleet of mini buses that will ply in rural areas. The plan is to give a boost to rural employment, access to markets and better education. The funding pattern for the scheme is likely to be on the same lines as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana where 40% contribution is by states and the balance by the Centre.

Tweet: Spanish-made Talgo train clocked record-breaking speed of 180 km/hr in trial run. But it’s an Indian diesel engine that hauled !!

Talgo’s speed run: The Spanish high-speed Talgo train clocked 180 km/hr during its trial run on the Mathura-Palwal stretch. Gatimaan Express is the fastest train in the country, with a top speed of 160 km/hour, followed by Bhopal Shatabdi and Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani, with top speeds of 150 km/hour and 130 km/hour, respectively.

Tweet: If Rlys are successful with planned R1.25 lac cr of capex in 2016-17, then it overtakes the “much more discussed” NHAI’s R1 lac cr target.

Railway capex to overtake roads outlay?: Indian Railways completed 2015-16 on a high note, achieving record capex of Rs 90,000 crore. The railway minister has an ambitious plan for increasing capex across the areas of network expansion, network decongestion, station redevelopment, rolling stock and improving safety.

Tweet: @PiyushGoyal correctly argues for including Electricity in GST regime. Keeping it out will leave generators unable to offset frm elec sold.

GST to empower electricity equipment manufacturers: The power minister is keen that GST also gets introduced in the electricity distribution market which is not currently envisaged. This will allow the desired pass-through of cascading taxes so that suppliers of electrical equipment are able to benefit from the offsetting provision that the GST regime enables.

Tweet: Infra rising again! Canadian fund Brookfield raises largest ever infra fund of $14 billion. Global Infra Partners gearing up for $15 bill.

Brookfield’s mega fund: Brookfield Asset Management has raised the largest-ever fund, which will help it invest in infrastructure assets around the world. India is looking forward to the participation of this fund in the National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).

Tweet: Speed with which bottled Ganga-jal was bought at post office outlets shows that this creative marketing can largely fund Ganga cleaning!

New funding sources for Ganga cleaning project: Bottled Gangajal from Rishikesh was sold out within days of these being made available at post office outlets across the country. The packaged holy water is available in 200 ml and 500 ml bottles.

Tweet: Action on Namami Gange project, & the 74 towns along its banks spewing waste, is now poised to be a big market for Effluent Treatment cos.

River of opportunities: Water-effluent treatment companies are gearing up to tap into an estimated R500 crore market which has been created as a result of the government’s Ganga cleaning project, Namami Gange. The project is valued at Rs 1,500 crore and will be completed in a phased manner.

Tweet: Gurgaon to be beacon of PROSUMER concept—where consumers turn producers by supplying solar power into grid during daytime & draw at night.

Gurgaon readies for smart power: Gurgaon is expected to become the first city to get a full-scale smart grid by the end of 2017. Citizens will be able to integrate their residential solar systems with the grid and start feeding unused power into the grid. This unused power gets adjusted against the total consumption from the mains, with consumers paying only for the balance they have consumed.

—Vinayak Chatterjee is Chairman of Feedback Infra
His Twitter handle: @Infra_VinayakCh
A weekly selection of the author’s tweets—with a brief backgrounder—in the infra space, by Adite Banerjie