See in Sunday’s The Hindu “Abysmal Infrastructure“. Although the piece focuses on dangerous pedestrian walkways and cycling tracks in Hyderabad, India’s fourth largest city (population 7 million), all of India badly needs new roads, railways, bridges, airports and power stations. But the country’s economy–globally, the third largest in purchasing power, and tenth largest in GDP–still grows at a slower than expected rate. Many Indian infrastructure and engineering firms not only build but often own or operate projects, sometimes with the Indian government as a partner. Several of the country’s leading infrastructure firms, however, are plagued themselves by debt and downturns in business. Goldman Sachs recently estimated that India’s infrastructure sector (which broadly defined accounts for about a quarter of India’s industrial output) will require $1.7 trillion (USD) in investment over the next ten years. The questions: Where’s the money going to come from? Which firms, in and out of India, will do the work?
