The Hindu Business Line : Governing through committees

What is the justification for a new Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure when the last one formed by the previous UPA Government failed in its purpose?

Governments come in two guises — those that govern and those that form committees. The UPA belongs to the latter category, as its decision to form yet another committee — called the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI) — shows. It has 12 members, with the Prime Minister presiding. Such a committee may have been needed had one not existed already. In fact, however, a plain vanilla Committee on Infrastructure, consisting of as many as seven Cabinet min isters and three others, was set up way back in 2005. But it managed to meet only once and was therefore shifted to the Planning Commission. The new CCI may not do much better than the old one.

As this newspaper has pointed out, the reason why infrastructure targets were not met during the last UPA Government was a gross misinterpretation of the mandate given to the old Committee which led to the centralisation of power in the Planning Commission. This resulted in the emasculation of the line Ministries, mixing up of roles, confusion over accountability, and a virtual pen-down strike by the major infrastructure Ministries. Massive delays resulted. It is unlikely that the new Committee will be able to reduce these. After all, what sense does it make to have projects that cost as little as Rs 150 crore to be referred to the CCI, especially since the previous Committee didn’t see projects costing less than Rs 300 crore? Perhaps the Government has not heard of inflation? Or are there other reasons?

Administrative arrangements are not the only problem. The Government also does not seem to be clear as to what constitutes infrastructure. This is evident from the mandate given to the CCI. It will consider projects in energy, railways, roads and national highways, ports, airports, telecommunications, information technology, irrigation, housing and urban development. The Planning Commission’s website has its own definition of infrastructure and comprises 11 sectors including gas distribution and inland waterways. The Finance Ministry, meanwhile, has its own views, as do banks and, indeed, the rest of the world. Is it any surprise that so little gets done? It also could not be a coincidence that the definitional and administrative problems have begun only after Public-Private-Partnerships became fashionable. This development was the result of the perception that foreign funds were critical to infrastructure development. Yet that was never fully proved. And now that global finance is in crisis, has not the time come to stop wasting money on social sector programmes of dubious economic benefits and focus domestic savings and borrowings on infrastructure?

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