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The
infrastructure sector continues to remain on the top of
the agenda for most of the growing economies of the world.
In India, the Committee on Infrastructure estimated the
investment requirements for the infrastructure sector of
India during 2007-12 to be over $384 bn. In its Approach
Paper to the 11th Five Year Plan, the Planning
Commission acknowledges the significance of this sector
and calls for infrastructure expenditure to rise to 8% of
GDP during the period 2008-12 from 4.6% achieved in 2005-06.
The public investments alone cannot meet these growing infrastructure
demands. Efforts are being made to attract private capital
into infrastructure. The challenges to infrastructure financing
comes both from within the sector as well as from the domestic
financial system. The sector has failed to generate enough
surpluses for re-investment due to the inability to charge
appropriate tariffs and user charges, and poor operational
and financial performance especially in the government dominated
sectors like electricity. With the increasing participation
of the private sector and limitations of the government's
budgetary support, there is a greater dependence on the
domestic financial system. However, the existing regulatory
provisions limit the ability of the banks and financial
institutions to meet the requirements of the infrastructure
sector. The insurance companies have also failed to meet
their prudent investment norms in this regard. The Deepak
Parekh Committee on Infrastructure Financing points out
that the absence of efficient credit risk transfer mechanisms
such as securitization, credit derivatives, credit insurance,
etc., have constrained the growth of infrastructure sector
investment by insurance companies. Above all, the infrastructure
sector is facing unprecedented challenges, which need to
be addressed with vigor for the overall economic growth.
Against
this backdrop, the present issue makes an attempt to deal
with physical infrastructure and land productivity, rural
infrastructure with respect to rural godown, tourism infrastructure
and power sector reform.
The
World Development Report 1994, enunciated the effect of
infrastructure on economic development and also articulated
that good infrastructure raises productivity and lowers
production costs. Keeping this in view, Chittaranjan Nayak
in the paper "Physical Infrastructure and Land Productivity:
A District Level Analysis of Rural Orissa" observes
that the overall physical infrastructure index is highly
significant in raising land productivity. The study further
argues that the low land productivity in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput
(KBK) region and some districts of Western Orissa is due
to the underdevelopment of rural infrastructure. The analysis
proposes for time-bound delivery system, and region-specific
measures to be initiated to overcome these challenges.
Adequate
and proper storage infrastructure is one of the major elements
of agricultural infrastructure sector in India. The present
level of storage capacity in India is sufficient only for
10% of the total production of fruits and vegetables. The
capacity requirement for post-harvest management of perishables
is estimated to be over five times that of the current capacity.
The Expert Committee on Strengthening and Developing of
Agricultural Marketing assesses the need for creation of
15,000 additional cold storages with a capacity of 45 million
tons. This would require an investment of Rs. 27,000 cr.
The paper "Rural Infrastructure: Spread, Investment
and Benefit from Grameen Bhandaran Yojana" by M S Jairath
furthers the extent of spread of constructed/renovated godowns,
regional imbalances in construction of rural godowns, investments
made and subsidy distributed, their availability in terms
of geographical area as well as production, utilization
pattern, etc. It also examines the benefits extended to
rural economy in terms of employment generation, wastage
reduction and price gain by launching of the rural godowns
scheme in India.
Despite
considerable growth in tourism and good progress of policy
and operational fronts in India, the relative share of tourist
arrival and earning from tourism remain insignificant in
contrast to its tourism potential due to inadequate infrastructure.
The basic infrastructure components like airport, railways,
roads, waterways; amenities like, electricity, water supply;
and services and facilities like accommodation, restaurants,
recreational facilities etc. need to be addressed for a
sustainable development of tourism. Sajal Ghosh in the paper
"Tourism Infrastructure: Forecasting of International
Tourist Flows to India" highlights the present status
of tourism infrastructure and its contribution to the Indian
economy. He forecasts the international tourist arrival
to India using univariate time series techniques, which
may be helpful for the government and people concerned,
to provide adequate infrastructural facilities.
The
IT revolution has provided an edge to the services sectors
like financial services, banking and retail all over the
world. At the same time, it is imperative to gather and
store different kinds of data to be used in monitoring,
controlling and improving operations. Data warehousing enables
storing of massive quantities of information on multiple
aspects of business operation. R P Datta in the paper "Data
Mining Applications and Infrastructural Issues: An Indian
Perspective" has discussed the development of data
mining, its methods, applications and tools, and also discussed
two infrastructural models—centralized and distributed—for
performing data mining operations. In the growing Indian
economy, three specific areas of potential applications
of data mining operations have been examined.
The
energy requirement of India is expected to grow by four-fold
in the next 25 years. Availability of quality power at the
right price is one of the infrastructure bottlenecks that
threatens to derail the economic growth in India. The Government
has to take some effective steps under the reform process
for the power sector, which is still plagued by high Transmission
and Distribution (T&D) losses, inadequate metering,
obsolete equipment, theft, subsidy, etc. Again, the need
of the hour is to focus on energy conservation and management
in addition to new generation and finding new energy sources.
Hiremani Naik and Tanaji G Rathod, in the paper "Impact
of Availability-Based Electricity Tariffs (ABT) on the Power
Sector: Case Study of Karnataka" assesses the impact
of ABT, structure, operation and technical norms, and the
overall power sector reforms in Karnataka to achieve economy
and efficiency. To improve the efficiency of power utilities,
the ABT regime encourages the generators to produce more
power when required and vice-versa, thereby reducing variations
in the frequency.
-
Pradeepta Kumar Samanta
Consulting
Editor
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