FM’s announcements extremely positive for infrastructure: Jayant D Mhaiskar, MEP Infra

It is important that liquidity is maintained so that the infrastructure projects can be completed on a timely basis without any further delays and that would only help reduce the cost escalation and time overruns, says Jayant D Mhaiskar, Chairman & MD, MEP Infra. Excerpts from an interview with ETNOW.

Quite a few announcements have been made for that much-needed push for the infrastructure sector, in particular, a Rs 100-lakh crore infrastructure investment over the next five years. They are ready to frontload investment for projects with a clear completion visibility. How would you read into these moves which are very much a need of the hour at the moment?
The first reaction is it would be an extremely positive development as far as the infrastructure sector is concerned. We all know that this government has made announcements in the last few budgets, specifically going ahead with the ambitious but doable Bharatmala programme, which is a part of infrastructure on a larger perspective.

With today’s specific announcement on the plans giving specific impetus on lending as well as the total capital outlay being laid out over the next few years on the infrastructure sector -- particularly power, railways, irrigation as well as urban infrastructure, by way of roads and ports. It is definitely a good move and what is very important is, all the banks are flush with funds and it is important that liquidity is maintained in these spaces which allows these projects to be completed on a timely basis without any further delays and that would only help reduce the escalation and cost and time overruns.