Cities - Developments, Projects & Construction

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[url="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHlh66S8E9Xo&pos=2"]India Planning $11 Billion Infrastructure Fund, Ahluwalia Says[/url]

India, ranked below war-ravaged Ivory Coast and Sri Lanka for the quality of its infrastructure, spent 6.5 percent of its gross domestic product in 2009 on infrastructure, compared with about 11 percent by China, according to an Ernst & Young India report. Failure to lift investment may imperil Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s target of boosting economic growth to 10 percent needed to pull 828 million people living on less than $2 per day out of poverty.



The fund is a “good start but it won’t be enough,” said Prasanna Ananthasubramaniam, chief economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Ltd. in Mumbai. “One fund cannot take all the risks of infrastructure projects.”



Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the nation’s Planning Commission, said in a report in March that India may need as much as $1 trillion in investment between 2012 and 2017.



The proposed fund will sell bonds and lend to projects, he said yesterday. India is ranked 89 out of 133 nations for its infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.

India produces about 10 percent less electricity than it needs. The roads, which account for 65 percent of India’s cargo, are plagued by single lanes and irregular surfaces, slowing trucks to an average speed of about 20 kilometers per hour, said a 2009 study by Transport Corp. of India and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.



The average time taken by ships to unload and load at Indian ports is almost 96 hours, about 10 times longer than in Hong Kong, the government said in its latest annual economic survey.