The policy and bureaucratic logjam has caused a loss to the tune of Rs. 42,000 crore in power sector alone.
The phenomenon has impacted 78,000 megawatt power production in coal and gas-based power plants, according to Arvind Kumar, Union joint secretary, Ministry of Finance.
Speaking at Ravi Mathai Memorial Lecture held by the alumni of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad at Hyderabad on Saturday evening, he said, “As of December 11, 400 projects worth Rs. 17.68 lakh crore in power, steel, coal, mining and petroleum are pending with Cabinet committee on investments for clearance. We need to ease logjam, improve quality of infrastructure to get commissioned and financed projects going.”
Delivering the keynote address, K.V. Kamath, non-executive chairman of board of directors, ICICI Bank, said the economy was given a wrong medicine in the form of increasing interest rates.
‘No reaction to any medicine’“The economy has not reacted to any medicine, even the repeated interest rates. For the economy to pick up momentum, one needs to address the problem of supply and distribution, especially in food and related issues,” Kamath said.
The forthcoming government should learn from the past mistakes and challenges and should give momentum to the cycle of growth.
“We need to stall the on-going projects and get new ones,” he said.
There has been a significant drop in the financing of infrastructure projects at ICICI bank in the past two years, according to him.
