Budget 2019: One For The Road - NE infra makes it big, rest move in slow lane

During the election year, the Interim Budget has emphasised less on the road infrastructure and power sectors and set focus on finance social and agricultural sectors — the government's focus areas for the season. However, it isn't the same for the Northeastern states. Infrastructure allocation for Northeastern states has been increased by 21% to Rs 58,166 crore in 2019-20 over 2018-19 Budget Estimates.

A look at the outlays for various schemes, however, shows that government has not substantially increased funds.

For example, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been allocated Rs 36,691 crore in the latest announcement for the next fiscal, which is 1.68% lesser than the revised estimates presented on Friday. As per the revised estimates Rs 37,321 crore has been marked for NHAI for the ongoing year.

Similarly, wind power segment's funding has been cut down by 24.21% to Rs 720 crore in 2019-20 as compared to Rs 950 crore in the revised estimates of 2018-19. However, the allocation for solar power remains unchanged at Rs 1,890 crore.

Post-budget announcement, Amit Gupta, Director of Legal & Corporate Affairs, Vikram Solar, said, "In a situation where there is a scarcity of financing options for renewables, and manufacturing units are dying a slow death, the Interim Budget provides no ray of hope. The industry was expecting a policy direction from the government to promote manufacturing, especially in the renewable energy sector in the backdrop of job crisis, which India is facing right now. Surprisingly, this was completely missing from the budget."

The budgetary allocation for the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy remains similar to the capital allocated in FY 2017-18, standing at Rs 5,200 crore.

Among the few schemes where fund allocation has increased is Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana for which Rs 19,000 crore has been earmarked, same as the previous year. The revised estimates for 2018-19 has scaled down expenditure under the same scheme to Rs 15,500 crore.

Sharing viewpoints on the Interim Budget, Sandeep Upadhyay, MD & CEO of Centrum Infrastructure Advisory Limited said, "Putting some of these Northeastern states on the aerial and railways connectivity map was long overdue and comes as a huge relief for the people of NE states; paving path for their gradual economic evolution. While the highway sector has been lately struggling to attract funding, the achievement of 27-km daily is commendable given the overall financing constraints."

According to Upadhyay, government's exchequer will continue to be under strain given that most of the mega projects currently under implementation are under government's balance sheet with private players taking a backseat on the Public Private Partnership and Build Operate Transfer projects.

The infrastructure industry was expecting to hear more on the plans to fund the gap in infrastructure, but this seem to have been given a miss in the Interim Budget.