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The Economic Survey is generally lost between the din and bustle of the Railway Budget and the Union Budget. However, the Survey is traditionally an insightful document -- and for 2007-08, very elegantly produced too. Students of infrastructure will find some rich pickings from the latest Eco Survey.
The 'Infrastructure' word first. It is indeed surprising to find post featured here whereas more probable candidates like coal and mining, water resources and irrigation, inland waterways, industrial parks and SEZs do not yet find a place. Nevertheless, there is illumination on offer to the uninitiated:
On ports, in spite of much talk about the 'silent revolution' underway, the survey findings do not present a positive picture for the major ports. The average turnaround time increased from 3.5 days to 3.6 days in 2006-07, compared with 10 hours in Hong Kong. The pre-berthing waiting time at major ports, increased from 8.77 hours in 2005-06 to 10.05 hours in 2006-07. Maybe the story for the 200 non-major (or minor ports) is far better than that for the 12 major ports. But, remember, the 12 major ports carry three-fourths of the total traffic.
On highways, much has been written and debated. While it is well-known that national highways account for only 2 per cent of the total length of roads, they carry 40 per cent of the total traffic and 50 per cent of all discussions on infrastructure.
Two hitherto hidden highway gems that were thought fit to highlight in our nation's economic survey are reproduced below:
On civil aviation, there are 14 scheduled airline operators having 334 aircraft. The ministry of civil aviation has given "in-principle" approval for the import of 496 aircraft. There are also 65 non-scheduled airlines operators who have 201 aircraft in their inventory. This explosive growth in air traffic has led to problems we are all aware of.
Therefore, the decision to set up an Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) is welcome on two counts. One, it is expected that a proper regulatory framework as envisaged would help in the regulation of tariffs of aeronautical services, protection of interests of users and operation of airports in an efficient and economically viable manner. Two, it is a forward movement in the long march to create independent (hopefully!) regulatory authorities in the infrastructure space.
On railways, safety does seem to be improving if statistics are to be believed. As per the Economic Survey, the index for accidents per million train kilometres has come down progressively from 0.55 in 2001-02 to 0.29 in 2004-05 to 0.28 in 2005-06 and further to 0.23 in 2006-07. The number of train accidents also came down from 415 in 2001-02 to 195 in 2006-07.
On urban infrastructure, the Survey ruefully concludes that since the problems associated with urban transport are of relatively recent origin in India, the ability to fully understand and deal with these problems is yet to fully mature.
It is for the power sector that the Economic Survey rightfully devotes most of its own energy.
In the case of the thermal power sector, the state, central and private sector plants reported a plant load factor (PLF), of 70.2 per cent, 85.4 per cent and 92.5 per cent, respectively, during April-December 2007-08. This is extraordinarily revealing of the perceived level of relative efficiencies that these three segments are generally supposed to have!
Now on to the key question of additions to installed capacity. The 11th Five Year Plan projects a capacity addition of 78,577 MW. The Economic Survey 2007-08 notes that actual capacity addition till Jan 31, 2008 is as shown in the table.
And, this is what Jairam Ramesh has had to say in his first interview after talking over as Minister of State for Power: "Plan after Plan, we have failed badly towards meeting the targets set for capacity addition.
The biggest task that I face today is to reverse the trend of over-promising and under-delivery. It is shocking but the capacity addition during 8th Plan was 16,000 MW as against the target of 30,000 MW. In the 9th Plan, too, we failed badly and delivered only 19,000 MW as against the target of 40,000. The 10th Plan was no exception and as against the target of some 41,000-plus MW, we could deliver only around 21,000 MW. This cannot go on. We should stop painting rosy pictures and talk of some real-time execution and delivery." (Financial Express, April 9, 2008)
We wish Jairam luck. He will need it. And we also hope that so far as the power sector is concerned, future Economic Surveys will not be forced to say what this one had to say about urban infrastructure!
The author is the Chairman of Feedback Ventures. He is also the Chairman of CII's National Council on Infrastructure. The views expressed are personal.
