One of the bottlenecks for the growth of Indian economy is infrastructure and in particular roads.Some facts and estimates that help us see the urgent need for infra development:

  • According to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), highways form a tiny 2% of the entire road network but carry more than 40% of traffic.
  • The annual road-transport market is gauged to be worth about US$95 million, but could increase to more than $125 million if road conditions improve, says the transport industry.
  • A new Asian Development Bank study says China and East Asian countries will have to invest $1 trillion in the next five years on infrastructure to cope with growing economies and populations.
  • India has thus become the fastest-growing car bazaar in the world, overtaking China.Goldman Sachs has predicted that India will have the largest number of cars by 2050.
  • Transporters say there has been a major shift in transportation mode from railways toward roads. Indian roads carry 85% of passenger and 70% of freight traffic.

Budget 2005 emphasis on Infra development should see some improvement . However I remain skeptical about govt. talk as a lot of previous govts. have shown that “there’s many a slip between cup and lip”.