PM Modi’s continued emphasis on infrastructure development will boost growth and prosperity
Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly said on Saturday, “Infrastructure development is the driving force of the country’s economy.” He was addressing a post-Budget webinar.
He is relentless in his focus on infrastructure development. This fact can be better comprehended if we look at the big picture of infrastructure—in a historical perspective. A close look will show that the conspicuous feature of prime ministers belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party is their emphasis on infrastructure development.
In 2001, Atal Bihari Vajpayee launched the Golden Quadrilateral Highway Project. Many experts and ahis detractors ridiculed him for his bold initiative. The biggest point of criticism was: where is the money for this ambitious project? The criticism was not without substance, for the fiscal deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product or GDP was estimated at 5.5 per cent for 2000-01 and 5.1 per cent for 2001-02. The revenue deficit, which reflects the excess of current expenditure over the current receipts, was 3.2 per cent of GDP in 2001-02.
Despite the criticism and the derision the idea of Golden Quadrilateral was treated with, it proved to be successful. It was carried forward by the Congress-led UPA, though sluggishly. Which was not surprising given the UPA’s Left-leaning policies. The UPA regime was excessively focused on entitlement-oriented, revenue-guzzling programmes.
It is not that the Modi Govt has disbanded the welfare state; quite the contrary, it has made welfare measures extremely efficacious by streamlining the delivery mechanisms. Technology has been deployed for this purpose. In fact, the efficiency of pro-poor measures has improved to such an extent that political analysts had to coin a new term for the beneficiaries—labharthies. This has also helped the BJP in various elections.
At the same time, the Govt has persisted with its emphasis on infrastructure. So, in her Budget 2023-24, Nirmala Sitharaman hugely increased, third time in a row, capital investment outlays. For the next fiscal, capital expenditure has been pegged at Rs 10 lakh crore, which would be 33 per cent more than the one in 2022-23. This is a big sum, around 3.3 per cent of the country’s GDP. The ‘effective capital expenditure’ would be to the tune of Rs 13.7 lakh crore if the provision for the creation of capital assets through grants-in-aid to states is also taken into account.
Under Modi, infrastructure development has already made considerable progress, but he is impatient: “Now we have to improve our speed and move in top gear.” The PM Gati Shakti Master Plan is a critical tool which will “change the face of India’s infrastructure and its multimodal logistics.” Commenting on the prevailing mentality that poverty is a virtue, PM Modi claimed that his present government has not only been successful in eliminating this mentality but also in making record investments in modern infrastructure. The good work should continue.
