The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2020 speech announced a host of measures for infrastructure development. An ambitious plan to invest Rs 100 lakh crores on overhauling the Infrastructure in the country was declared by the FM which will give a fillip to the economic growth. The Union Minister mentioned that the investment of Rs 100 lakh crores will open up a host of job opportunities in the infrastructure sector.
Rs 1.76 lakh crores have been envisioned in Budget 2020 to be spent on transport infrastructure development in 2021. FM talked about the accelerated pace of development of highways. Delhi-Mumbai Expressway along with 2 other projects are intended to be completed by 2023 with 2,500 km access-controlled highways and 9,000 km of an economic corridor.
Chennai-Bengaluru expressway will be commenced very soon. A National Logistics Plan will be released soon. 12 lots of highway bundles spread over 6,000 km will be monetised before 2024.
Stating that Indians are fast embracing the air mode of transportation, the finance minister declared that her government plans to build and operationalise 100 new airports by 2024 to fulfil the fledgeling aspirations of the countrymen. With the aim to energise economic activities along the river banks, the government has conceived a project called ‘Arth Ganga’ for developing the inland waterways transport system in Ganga and other rivers that will provide employment opportunities and means of livelihood for people living along the banks of rivers.
In addition, N Sitharaman also stated that Rs 27,300 crores have been earmarked for the development and promotion of commerce and industry in the financial year 2020-2021 and about 3.24 lakh vendors have been registered on the Government e-marketplace. Ushering the villages into the digital age, the government has announced that 1 lakh gram panchayats will be getting optical fibre links to connect with the dynamic world of the Internet. Plans are afoot to institute a new policy to set up Data Centre parks across the country to provide digital connectivity to all public institutions, said FM Nirmala Sitharaman.
Scheme to encourage the manufacture of mobile phones, electronic equipment and semiconductor packaging to be introduced.
The government also made a number of announcements apropos the Rs 1.03 lakh crore National Infra Pipeline scheme. About 6500 projects are envisioned under NIP across sectors — housing, safe drinking water, healthcare, clean energy, logistics, irrigation etc. “NIP is improving the ease of living for every citizen. Generic and sectoral reforms are there…There is huge employment opportunity in the construction, operation and maintenance of projects,” N Sitharaman said.
