Indian infra scores on innovation, falls short on execution

Five Indian projects, including the USD 90 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor have made it to the list of the world's top 100 innovative and inspiring infrastructure projects. However, even though these projects have scored high on their innovativeness, they are still a long way from scoring much on their execution, reports CNBC-TV18’s Ronak Jain.

The country's beleaguered infrastructure sector, which has been reeling under sluggish order book growth, high cost of financing and regulatory road blocks, finally sees some cheer. Global consultancy firm KPMG's report titled "Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition" featuring the world's top 100 innovative global infrastructure projects has included five Indian projects for their scale and innovation. “In India, there is a degree of pessimism associated with infrastructure and generally the economy. In that context, we wanted you to see what are the innovations people are doing,” said Arvind Mahajan, partner at KPMG. Of the five chosen projects, the USD 90 billion Dehli-Mumbai Industrial Corridor has been featured among the top 10 in world. The other projects that are recognized are Chennai’s Solar Economic Zone, Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, Gorai Dumping Ground Scientific Closure and Education City Dantewada in Chhattisgarh. The New Delhi Sewage Masterplan received an honorary mention. But while their conception and innovativeness have been recognised, the ground reality for some of these projects is different. Progress and execution in some cases have been slow. A part of the Sabarmati River Front Project called the 'culture mile' has been put on hold due to lack of funds. And other projects like the DMIC have faced massive delays due to land acquisition and state government approvals. Amitabh Kant, the MD & CEO of the DMIC development corporation says “this is a big project which needs to be broken into smaller components. The smaller components need to be planned well and then those plans need to be strictly adhered to. Then there is the challenge of bringing in technology to make quantum advances. Lastly, is the need to bring in long-term financing; we must start understanding that they are difficult, complicated and challenging projects of this nature can't be done over night.” Overall, given the financial health of most infrastructure companies and regulatory bottlenecks, experts say global recognition of five Indian projects for their innovation is a positive, even though transforming these projects into reality is likely to be a long and bumpy journey. Watch the accompanying video for more details..