Web exclusive: Bulk infra investments expected from private sector

“Only half of the one trillion dollars announced for infrastructure by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, may actually get deployed in to this sector,” revealed P R Swarup, Convenor, Working Group on Construction, Planning Commission.

Speaking at the Property World International conference Offices North India, 2010-12 at New Delhi recently, he said, “Figures and statistics have a way of getting inflated while the actual numbers that find their way down is much lesser. Nevertheless, the government is very keen to recognize and identify thrust areas and initiate policies for time bound creation of world class infrastructure. The government is assigning a key role for public-private participation in infrastructure for which the bulk of investment is envisaged to come from the private sector.

P R Swarup, who was the chief guest at the conference, also called on developers, financiers to reflect upon the ability of the industry to pay high office rentals at Rs200/300 per sqft. He questioned which industry was doing so well, as to generate income to pay such high rentals.

“Nearly 80 per cent of the economy, can not afford such rentals, while the services sector which is about 20 per cent and serving the rest of the country, has the ability to pay that kind of rentals. Even in that, the IT sector is also not equipped to pay such rentals. This should now dawn upon the various stakeholders and players,” he remarked.

“Empty malls lining streets are a testimony to the colossal waste of resources. There are no takers for the foreign brands that they are showcasing while developers, who constructed the malls and financiers who have financed these malls on great projections now find themselves with no ability to recover their money. It is now pertinent that we do loud thinking on these issues including the reasons for high priced lands, which in turn leads to high rentals and other undesirable effects,” he highlighted.