Infrastructure investment must be doubled to $1000 billion in 12th Plan: Prime minister

Prime minister Manmohan Singh today said investment in infrastructure should be doubled to about Rs41 lakh crore during the 12th Five Year Plan ending 2017 from the prevailing level, and directed concerned authorities to work out the details.

"Preliminary exercises suggest that investment in infrastructure will have to expand to $1,000 billion in the 12th Five Year Plan. I urged the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission to draw a plan of action for achieving this level of investment," he said at a conference on building infrastructure hosted by the Planning Commission.

In a foreword to a report on Investment in Infrastructure, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia also said the country needs an investment of over $1 trillion in the next Five Year Plan.
    
"A preliminary assessment suggests that investment in infrastructure during the 12th Plan would need to be of the order of about Rs 40.99 lakh crore ($1,025 billion) to achieve a share of 9.95 per cent as a proportion of the GDP," Ahluwalia said in the report.

The prime minister said the 11th Five Year Plan targeted Rs20 lakh crore for infrastructure development, double the amount achieved in the 10th Five Year Plan.

Yesterday, the Planning Commission had said investment in the infrastructure sector in the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) will be close to the target of $500 billion, thanks to a better-than-expected show by the telecom sector.

At the Conference, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the Government is aware of the unfinished agenda in infrastructure development, which is necessary for a return to a high growth path of over 9 per cent.
    
On infrastructure bottlenecks, he said, power deficit and the aggregate losses of around 30 per cent due technical and commercial faults are worrisome. Less-than-expected capacity addition in the port sector, a huge investment backlog in
railways and low penetration of broadband services were flagged as other concerns.