Risk On

Despite huge strides, the risk of stressed and stranded projects is keeping investors jittery about India’s infrastructure building strategy.

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

THE OPENING UP OF THE 135-kilometre Eastern Peripheral Expressway, and a phase of the 136-km Western Peripheral Expressway, will enhance connectivity in the National Capital Region (NCR). These corridors are estimated to remove roughly 50,000 trucks out of Delhi’s congested roads and accelerate freight movement around the NCR.

The expressway is part of larger physical infrastructure designed to connect: a) the Ludhiana-Delhi-Mumbai dedicated freight corridor (DFC), b) the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, and c) the Delhi-Kolkata DFC. In the larger scheme of affairs, this, plus the resurrected Delhi-Bundelkhand Highway, the widened Delhi-Meerut, Delhi Hisar highways, and the upcoming international airport at Jewar makes the expressway very significant. This is all the more important since National Highway One and Delhi-Agra-Lucknow Expressway have been widened.

Completion of the expressways encircling Delhi took nine years longer than scheduled because of land acquisition issues and endless litigation. In Uttar Pradesh, the government’s offer to triple the current circle rate to acquire land for the Jewar airport saw farmers holding out for more. The land acquisition problem, it seems, is not going to be easy to solve.

There are other issues too. Despite officials’ claims that the government’s willingness to share the risk was improving matters, investors have been chary about many Indian infrastructure projects believing that risk looms large. Meanwhile, newer players also haven’t been able to garner investor confidence even as older players recoup from losses.