The construction ban is justified

The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for July was at its lowest in the past eight years and demand took a deep dive owing to GST adjustments. By the deadline of August 25, over 36 lakh businesses had filed their GST returns. The overall impact is indicated to be an upswing of 16.6 per […]

Brace for impact!

Nagpur has been in the news ever since the political capital shifted under the current regime. All roads now lead to this ‘orange’ city which has always been a ‘capital in waiting’. The 710-km road that recently invited controversy was the Rs 46,000-crore Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway, which revised its invitation for bids with a supplementary advertisement […]

Win some, lose some

The balance between social good and infrastructural development is a delicate one. A citizen has a constitutional right to be provided basic amenities but the nation has limited resources, further constrained by a poor administrative system of collection of revenues, making it necessary to depend upon private investment. Private investment has to serve the profit […]

The tide is turning

There is finally good news on the economic front. Projects commissioned in the country reached a record high of Rs 4.6 lakh crore in FY2016, according to CMIE. This is the highest-ever commissioning of projects in a year and represents a 12 per cent increase over Rs 4 lakh crore in FY2015. The stock of […]

City Lights

According to a World Bank report titled Dealing with Construction Permits, India is languishing at the 183rd position in this parameter, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Afghanistan (185). But, finally, the government has attacked this in right earnest. March has been a watershed month of sorts in the history of construction in India. The […]

Toasting the fighters

We are not out of the woods yet. Eight core sectors – coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity – slowed to 1.1 per cent in July after a growth of 3 per cent in June, mainly on account of low expansion in coal output and contraction in steel, crude […]

Proof of performance

The problem with solutions is that solutions need to be measured for effectiveness of resolution. When solutions are taken as gospel answers, problems do not disappear. They remain and lurk in the shadows. Green ratings are similar solutions that seem like gospel answers to the energy guzzle by high rises.´What can´t be measured can´t be […]

The call of debt

Surprisingly, ever since Anil Swarup became head of the Projects Monitoring Group (PMG) under the Cabinet Committee of Investment, he has not gotten the attention he deserved. When we invited him to speak on the progress made by the PMG at an ´INFRASTRUCTURE TODAY´ conference, he was the first one to walk into the conference […]