NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Centre's budget announcement for the financial year 2023-24, former commerce secretary Ajay Dua has urged the government to ensure that implementation of infrastructure projects do not suffer from bottlenecks.
Speaking to ET Now on how the Centre can make infrastructure investments more attractive, Dua said the government needs to address the bottlenecks - be it in road connectivity, rail connectivity or the power industry.
"All these bottlenecks have to be definitely addressed and this Gati Shakti programme is trying to do that," he said.
Dua further stated that private sector has been very conservative about infrastructure investment because they burned their fingers during the last cycle. "Some of them are still not convinced of the financial viability or the profitability of these projects given that it's a very GDP-focused sector," he added.
Urging the government to intensify the monitoring mechanism, Dua said that Prime Minister's move to monitor large projects at his own level has to continue and should be intensified.
He also said that land continues to be a major issue in infrastructure.
"In the name of equity, we brought in greater equity to farmers and others, all very understandable the 2013 scheme, 2013 law, the land equity snack but the amendments which were sought to be made in 2014, those couldn't be passed. We left it to the state governments," the former commerce secretary added.
