Road sector, a good parking lot for investments

Kamal Nath: The Chaturvedi Committee Report, the committee was made at our instance. It really corrects what we wanted corrected, they looked at everything. And I think it's the right report. We must recognise that when we talk of doing 20 km a day which means 7,000 km a year, you need to be having 20,000 km of work in progress. That means about Rs 2 lakh crore of work in progress. 

To invite that kind of investment, if bidders, contractors and concessionaires don't bid, I don't have the road. So I have to ensure that concessionaires and contractors get financing. If there are clauses in any of our agreements or contractual papers whether it is the concession agreement or whatever which is not investment friendly, which people are not going to look at like say there is a termination clause, now no investor would come in and invest when he is told see here is a termination clause and he would be told to go. 

So we had to correct that. There were issues of risk in construction period and the post risk. So all these things were very necessary to be addressed, some of them have been addressed and many more will be in time to come. 

We have got to settle dispute resolution, and that has to be resolved because no one looks at dispute. There is a dispute resolution mechanism that doesn't work, nobody is going to come. So we are looking at a transparent method and that is the second part of the Chaturvedi Committee. 

Q: Would it be an appellate tribunal or something? 

A: The Chaturvedi Committee is looking at this in the second part of this report that what is transparent, what is fair and what is equitable. 

Q: When do you expect to receive it? 

A: I think in another month's time. So we are moving forward in this. We looked at an exit clause for contractors. Here is somebody who says I am a contractor and I want to build roads and I am not interested in the concessionaire. We must give them an exit to go and build another road and not to get stuck on one road. 

There are issues of conflict of interest. So all these issues we have corrected and we are going to correct more as we move on. There are issues, not really budgetary issues but issues where ECBs are concerned to be more flexible, where infrastructure is concerned, we must recognise today that in our growth trajectory with India's on to move forward in this. 

The biggest deficit is our infrastructure deficit, and in this infrastructure deficit is roads. There are issues of investment. We expect 60% of our roads by foreign investments to be in the BoT toll band, and another 25% on annuity basis. But the investment is going to come in. 

So we are working towards that and as long as India remains a good investment destination and in that destination a good parking lot will be the road sector.