Govt earmarks ₹105-tr infra investment in 5 years

business opportunities for the construction

The FM has announced that the government has worked out a master plan to boost infrastructure through ₹105 trillion investments in the next five years, which would bring huge business opportunities for the construction and capital goods sector. However, a report by Nomura Research suggests that spending of about ₹74 trillion is a reasonable expectation under the NIP between FY20 and FY25, versus ₹50 trillion in the last six years. “We expect reasonable levels of private capex only in roads, airports and renewable segments. In other segments, capex is likely to continue at the current low levels as many sectors still have low capacity utilization and also stressed balance sheets and a declining bank appetite to fund private infra, analysts at Nomura said. The government too has its share of battles as its fiscal constraints are a challenge and hence it has taken recourse in the recent past for extra budgetary resources and borrowings by central public sector enterprises. For instance, NHA borrowed to fund road projects. Apart from fiscal issues, reducing bottlenecks and resolving issues which have resulted in significant cost and time overruns is also vital for efficient utilization of the planned investment, said senior vice-president and research head, corporate ratings at Icra, Shubham Jain. Delayed land acquisition, which has put a spoke in the smooth and timely execution of even the recent Hybrid Annuity Model road projects, calls for structural reforms. Industry experts say that slow dispute resolving in infrastructure projects, redressal of stuck projects, and reneging contracts by the predecessors in power also needs to be addressed.