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• Is the government doing enough to mitigate regulatory concerns and policy paralysis affecting India's Infrastructure growth? ET in Hyderabad provides a ringside view.To fulfil India's aspirations of growing at over 9% per annum in the next five years, the government has taken a pledge to spend $ 1 trillion to build wider roads, light up more homes and encourage more sea borne trade. To achieve such an ambitious target, it has to rely heavily on the private sector to improve service quality, time and cost as there is a growing acknowledgement of the benefits that the private sector brings to the infrastructure sector.
• In its Twelfth Five Year Plan, the government hopes to harness the private sector's efficiencies in delivery of infrastructure projects to a much greater extent either through fully private ventures or through public private partnerships (PPP). But is the government doing enough to facilitate participation to make sure the enterprises remain financially viable?To debate this, the Economic Times hosted a round table to discuss the regulatory concerns affecting India Infrastructure's growth.
• The experts on the panel- all doyens representing various segment of India's power, roads, airports and ports segments- agreed that delays in regulatory decisions and non clarity have been the main bottlenecks in the India infrastructure story. And for massive investment to be pumped in, overcoming the challenges would be a daunting task.Almost all of the executives who represented their companies and segments spoke unanimously and agreed that quite often; the policy objectives that the government wishes to achieve out of independent regulatory regime are not spelt out clearly in the legislation. At times, the regulatory mandate falls short to achieve the stated policy objectives. Multi-stakeholder approach is nearly missing in most of the sectors and given the rather ambiguous regulatory mandate as well as the limited regulatory capacity, this evolving form of governance is falling short of the expectations so far.
• They called for clarity and coherence in legislation and said policy is the key determinant of regulatory efficacy and, therefore, model legislation for infrastructure regulatory regime in India be developed and recommended to the Government. The essential attributes of independent regulation should be considered while framing such model legislation. Incumbent regulation should get a specific mention in that, up front.
• GVK Group's chief financial officer Issac George said, "There are problems with respect to fuel supply as just about 50% of the fuel is being supplied compared to the 80% that was promised. Going ahead, we will not be able to operate below a minimum level. This might be worrisome for the bankers as well as companies may not be able to service the debt properly." The GVK group has interests in power, roads, airports and urban infrastructure. Issac George also spoke of how the problems the company encountered in implementing the Alaknanda hydro power project in Himachal Pradesh where the company had to wage a battle in the court to overcome many frivolous public interest litigations that were filed against the company.
• In the airports sector, many a developer has had countless run-ins with the airports' economic regulator, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority. "The single till method proposed for major airports will hurt both banks and developers," he said. Once concession agreement was signed, it needs to be respected, me George said.

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