Infra investment target in 11th 5-yr plan may not be achieved

MUMBAI: The government may not achieve the Eleventh Five-Year Plan's investment target of $500 billion in infrastructure due to the global economic downturn, a senior government official said.

"It is very difficult to achieve the target as many projects kicked-off very late...even many projects' bidding process started late. The projects were delayed due to the global (economic) downturn," Planning Commission advisor (Infrastructure)Gajendra Haldea told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Mumbai on Friday.

Haldea said resource generation would not be a constraint for the government and it is committed to building a world- class infrastructure for Indian industries.

"Efforts are going on to complete all mega projects by 2012," he said.

46,000 kilometres of National Highways at an investment of Rs 2,36,000 crore would be completed by 2012, he said, adding 21,036 kilometres have been approved through Public Private Partnership (PPP) programmes.

To achieve the target, Haldea said "the Government has decided to involve state governments to accelerate the National Highway projects."