For any construction-focused business, it is such a compelling figure — $180 billion (Dh662 billion). That’s what India is expected to offer in construction contracts for its road infrastructure in the next 30 months. And that would be on top of the $52 billion worth of project works already awarded. This is part of a $500 billion that the country will need to bring its road networks into full play.
India continues to woo UAE-based businesses, with Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road, Transport, Highways and Shipping, engaged in the task. UAE businesses and government-owned enterprises are listening closely, but they will need to hear more to convince them fully.
This is because infrastructure-specific projects have often become unwitting victims in the cut-and-thrust of Indian politics and promises are made during election campaigns, whereby those in the opposition always tend to dismiss them as being nothing more than real estate investments.
And it’s not rare for political parties to redraw the terms of the original contracts in ways they deem fit once they get back into the corridors of power.
All of which more often than not leaves the foreign investor well short of what he had originally signed up for. If India is serious about getting foreign interest in infrastructure, then the whole process must be anchored in transparency. There ought to be iron-clad assurances that terms of agreement, once drawn up, will not get a retrospective makeover during the five-year election cycles.
These investments on the part of foreign businesses are done in anticipation of India’s growth story. They should not be made to suffer trials and tribulations as a consequence.
