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The Road Bites The Map

Kamal Nath’s attack on the Plan Panel has lots to do with egos and missed targets

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The Road Bites The Map
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Kamal Nath’s AttackMontek’s Riposte

  • PlanCom is an armchair advisor, weak on ground realities. Its involvement is delaying major projects.
  • One-size-fits-all approach for ppp projects is unacceptable, flexibility sought for road projects in different states.
  • Wants 7,000 km roads target for 2010-11 against PlanCom’s 2,500 km target.
  • First quarterly review will show his ministry in a poor light, as targets have not been met.
  • Still argues his ministry will end up meeting the ambitious roads target over five years.
  • There is no antipathy between Kamal Nath and him. The minister is right; PlanCom is an advisor, not implementer. 
  • Differences over model concession agreements have been resolved by incorporating industry views.
  • The 2010-11 targets have been set in consultation with infrastructure ministries, no changes sought.
  • Quarterly reviews are needed; they help in assessing progress on various annual targets.
  • Sure, the PlanCom needs to reform. It is reviewing ways to become more relevant, modernise.

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Why is Kamal Nath angry with Montek Singh Ahluwalia? It’s a tricky question nobody wants to give a straight answer to, at least not publicly. The Union roads minister has publicly lampooned the all-powerful Planning Commission (PlanCom) for being an “armchair advisor”. Kamal Nath has accused the national plan body, run by PM’s “sherpa” Montek, of obstructing rather than facilitating infrastructure projects. Coming from a minister handpicked by the PM to turn around the NH project—in the doldrums since ’05—this is indeed harsh criticism.

But why this unprovoked attack? And is there a pattern—the numerous attacks on the PlanCom over the past few months? The panel is already facing questions on its BPL population estimates; some non-Congress/backward states have blamed it for not “understanding their needs”; and now its “investor-unfriendly” model concession agreement for roads projects comes in for criticism.

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Declining to comment on Kamal Nath’s  “odd statements”, Montek added that “there is no antipathy between us”. In fact, he admits that “Kamal Nath is right. We are advisors, not implementers, which, as the factual position, is more important.” He went on to stress that the plan body has embarked on a project, chaired by Arun Maira, to explore how it can become more relevant and modern.

That said, no one Outlook spoke to in the infrastructure space really supported Kamal Nath’s charge that the PlanCom is slowing down infrastructure projects. Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of Feedback Ventures, points out that delays here can occur due to a “confluence of circumstances.... Given the mixed bag of reasons, it is difficult to isolate and point a finger at any one agency or factor”.

Many industry experts in fact concur that the PlanCom has over the past one year strived to remove many perceived impediments to the roads programme. These include making changes in the model concession agreement for ppp projects as per the B.K. Chaturvedi panel’s recommendations. As Montek stresses, “A lot of the differences have been removed with these issues behind us.”

Is that really so? Dr Santosh Mehrotra, director-general of the PlanCom’s Institute of Applied Manpower Research, admits the delays in the award of infrastructure projects could be due to questions on technical aspects, which are then taken up with the ministries. “No expenditure of a planned nature can be approved without the Planning Commission coming into the picture. It’s a consultative process...the panel is only doing its job,” says Mehrotra, who has done an assessment of the body’s functioning.

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As far as highway projects go, there have been jumps in bids and costs. There have been scandals too, like the arrest of two senior nhai officials for corruption in the award of a project in MP. Refusing to comment on his minister’s remarks, highways secretary Brahm Dutt clarifies, “There’s no major issues with the Planning Commission. Whatever issues were there have been largely resolved. There are still some macro issues like long-term credit availability, but they are not related to the commission.”

So what was behind Kamal Nath’s outburst? Many feel it’s an ego issue; he is, in his own words, “in a race to catch up with the past”, to construct 20 km of roads per day (an ambitious jump over the current 6-7 km/day). For a minister feted on the world stage for his negotiating skills on wto pacts, the PlanCom’s more modest target of around 2,500 km for 2010-11 (as against his own target of 7,000 km) may have been unacceptable.

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Refuting charges that it had hijacked the rights of various infrastructure ministries in setting targets, Gajendra Haldea, PlanCom advisor (infrastructure), says, “All targets are set after consultation and with the agreement of respective ministries. There can be no question of the PlanCom setting targets if the ministries don’t agree.”

Beginning this year there will be a quarterly and annual review of the performance. The first quarterly review of targets achieved or missed till June will be up on the PlanCom website by July-end. Did Kamal Nath’s verbal attack have anything to do with the first report card showing up poor outcomes? “Last year, our performance was much better than in the previous year. In five years we will surely do 35,000 km, which will meet our objective of doing 20 km average per day,” says secretary Dutt a little defensively.

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Industry observers too say that the pace of road construction has picked up. “Since Kamal Nath took over, road projects have started moving faster,” says SREI Infrastructure’s Hemant Kanoria. But despite awarding 43 projects between January ’09 and February ’10, the highways ministry is yet to achieve its own targets. The pressure is obviously showing.

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