VISION 2010: Look at it, the other
way >:(
Part
of the ambitious infrastructure development plan ‘Gujarat Infrastructure
Agenda: Vision 2010’ of the Keshubhai Patel government may best remain
a dream.
Three weeks after chief minister
termed his dream as an "action document", fissures seem to have
cropped up within senior secretariat officials over the financing of projects
enlisted in the plan.
"The plan envisages investment
across 383 infrastructure projects worth about Rs 1,16,993 crore. Of this,
government of Gujarat and its agencies are expected to contribute about
Rs 21,471.8 crore, assuming a debt:equity ratio of 70:30, over a period
of one decade. The issue, however, is where from state is going to raise
so much money", asks senior bureaucrat.
The biggest lacunae, according
to some officials, is that the plan is "need-based" and not "resource
based". "Even the finance minister Yashwant Sinha hinted during unveiling
of the plan both should have been taken into consideration. It is highly
unlikely that private parties would come forward without government assurance
of proper support," they added.
Even the document itself
admits that the scale of the estimated infrastructure requirement in the
next 10 years required large investments to be committed. "It is envisaged
that budgetary allocations will support around 18 per cent of the total
outlay requirements. The major resource gap, therefore, calls for attracting
very large scale private sector capital inflows in the state for infrastructure
development," the document adds.
However, a section of bureaucracy
adds that it would be difficult to provide 18 per cent of budgetary support
to the plan. "The growth in tax revenues has been plateauing in the recent
past, from 16.3 per cent in 1994-95 to 12 per cent in 1996-97. Moreover,
if we seek to provide 18 per cent budgetary support, our revenue receipts,
as a percentage of NSDP should grow by around 17-18 per cent every year.
A recent study on Gujarat finances states that the aggregate revenue receipts
rose to 17.26 per cent of its NSDP in 1997-98 from 15.66 per cent in 1980-81,
a growth of just 1.5 per cent in more than a decade. So, how would one
raise resources," sources said.
The document too has expressed
reservation over rise in tax collections saying that future growth in
tax collections" could be limited by the high existing tax rates and high
tax collection efficiency and any future growth in revenues would therefore
be driven more by overall economic growth in the state economy, rather
than an improvement in tax enforcement or collection."
As for the non-tax receipts,
sources in finance department say that state at the most can raise about
Rs 500-600 crore as non-tax revenues and would require about five years
to do so.
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