25
april 2015
international
construction
REGIONALREPORT
High-speed future?
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for funding transport projects in India, and the rise will see
INR4 (US$0.06) per litre fed into road andother infrastructure
schemes. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said this wouldmean an
additional INR 40,000 crore (US$ 6.37 billion) per year would
be available.
In terms of major projects, there is a strong desire to develop
high-speed rail in India. Indeed, this couldbe the defining legacy
ofMrModi’s premiership, in the same way that India’s national
highways network is associatedwith the last BJPPrimeMinister,
Atal BihariVajpayee.
Thecornerstoneof theNationalHighwaysDevelopmentProject
(NHDP) was the Golden Quadrilateral, a diamond-shaped
network ofmotorways connectingDelhi,Mumbai, Chennai and
Kolkata, alongwith several othermajor cities along the way.The
total length of this phase of theNHDP – other phases followed
– was more than 5,800 km, and construction ran from 2001 to
2012.
The proposed high-speed rail equivalent has been dubbed the
Diamond Quadrilateral, and would connect the same major
cities and therefore have a similar length. Besides the four cities
at the ‘points’ of the quadrilateral, it would also include Pune,
Hyderabad, Bangalore andThiruvanathapuram asmajor stations.
High-speed rail is one of Mr Modi’s manifesto pledges, and
speeches shortly after his election indicated the government
was following-up on its promises. In February, Union Railway
Minister SureshPrabhugave anupdate as part of thepresentation
of the IndianRailway budget.
“We will continue to pursue with vigour our special projects
T
here is a huge expectation that the Indian construction
marketwill pickup this year.The landslidevictoryofPrime
Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) last year came with a mandate to kick-start the stagnant
economy.
That sentimentwascertainly inevidenceatDecember’sbC India
exhibition. The comments of Liugong India’s general manager
for finance, Ashok Kumar, were typical of many. “The previous
government was not making any decisions about investment.
However, the new government is setting up special departments
to speed up the process. The next year should see a boom in
construction and implementation,” he said.
February saw the unveiling of the government’s budget for
2015-16 - its first real budget, following on from the interim
announcementmade at the endof June.
Perhaps themost significant policy change for the infrastructure
sector was the announcement of the quadrupling of the tax on
petrol anddiesel for roadvehicles from INR2 (US$0.03)per litre
to INR8 (US$0.12).The so-calledRoadCess is akey instrument
Expectations are that the Indian constructionmarket
will pick up this year, but PrimeMinister Narendra
Modi’s flagship high speed rail project will take longer
to come to fruition.
Chris Sleight
reports.
High-speed future?
