Infrastructure gets lion’s share in Jaitley’s Budget

In his Budget for 2015-16, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday proposed a whopping increase of Rs 70,000 crore in investment in infrastructure sector besides a slew of steps to spur its growth.

The FM said, “It is no secret that the major slippage in the last decade has been on the infrastructure front. Our infrastructure does not match our growth ambitions. There is a pressing need to increase public investment.”

Jaitley also stressed on the need to revitalise the public private partnership (PPP) mode of infrastructure development. Listing infrastructure among five major challenges he has to reckon with, Jaitley said it is a challenge for the Government to increase investment in the sector and with private investment in infrastructure via the PPP model still weak, public investment needs to step in, to catalyse investment.

He said, “Investment in infrastructure will go up by Rs 70,000 crore in the year 2015-16, over the year 2014-15 from the Centre’s funds and resources of CPSEs.” Jaitley said the Government has increased outlays on both the roads and the gross budgetary support to the Railways, by Rs 14,031 crore, and Rs 10,050 crore, respectively.