After promising the people of India better services through the use of information technology in its Digital India campaign, the Government has decided to launch Digital Infra soon to pave the way for achieving significant growth in the sector. Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will soon hold a round-table meeting with the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of leading infrastructure companies of the country.
“Digital Infra is a part of the Government’s ‘Digital Mission’ which will be launched soon. In this mission, the Government is aiming to address all issues involved in this sector. The Telecom Minister will soon meet the CEOs in the infrastructure sector,” a senior Government official told The Pioneer.
In a move to empower the people in every nook and corner of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently launched Digital India week in the Capital.
The Government’s digital initiative prompted the corporate biggies to invest over Rs 4.5 lakh crore in that mission which is expected to bring employment for over 18 lakh people in the country.
“As we have a huge success in the ‘Digital India’ week recently, we expect the same in this ‘Digital Infra’ too and the Government is also expecting another few billion dollars of investment in this programme as well,” said the official.
“For digital infra, a massive capital is required by the industry and we are looking into various aspects to spur investment into the sector,” the official added.
last week, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad held a round-table meeting with CEOs of major telecom firms to discuss all issues related to ‘Digital India’ mission and expressed hope to achieve a greater success in its implementation.
Stressing the need for digital infra, Bharti Airtel’s Director (Market Operation) Ajay Puri said, “We are keen to invest aggressively in the infrastructure space for which we want State Governments help in the site deployment. If the digital mission becomes a success, we will need more and more spectrum in future with increasing data traffic.”
“Digital inclusion will be realised fully when Internet connectivity will reach every nook and corner of the country. We are fully committed to the roll out obligations,” he added.
As far infrastructure sector is concerned, it has been witnessing a slump for last 3-4 years and a large number of projects in the sector were either stalled or abandoned, primarily due to lack of environment clearances, land acquisition delays and high cost of funds.
Experts, however, said that out of total 758 stalled projects, most were showing signs of traction because of a change in Government. “Stalled projects, a major concern on the economic front, are coming back on track, with the value of such projects declining by more than half in the past year,” they said.
As per data available in the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the value of stalled projects dipped 60.35 per cent to Rs 79,300 crore in the quarter ended June this year from Rs 2,00,000 crore in the year-ago period.
“During the past year, expectations of resolution to problems afflicting projects have increased. This has played a very important role in reducing the incidence of projects being stalled, said CMIE Managing Director and Chief Executive Mahesh Vyas.
The positive trend has been captured by Deutsche Bank also and said the last quarter of FY15 saw a pick-up in project approvals. “The last quarter of FY15 indeed marks the highest number of clearances received since the fourth quarter of 2013,” said the Deutsche Bank report.
With the digital move of the Government, it is expected that the sector not only will improve its performance, but also the transparency and governance in each and every segment of its sector.