Wondering why rail traffic congestion does not ease, power cuts are frequent or why mining continues to be a laggard despite investments? The answer to all such questions is cost overruns.
Demands include clearing eight critical coal blocks attached to projects of big corporate houses.
The Bill also envisages ushering in a regime of royalty concessions for the first time in the country.
The immediate trigger is the environment ministry's latest policy of asking corporates to mandatorily commit five per cent of project investments in environment protection measures.
The heightened activity on permissions to power and mining projects, which had been stuck for long, coincides with the run-up to a likely reshuffle of the council of ministers this month.
The railways buy an average of 2.4 billion litres of diesel every year spending around Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion) annually on diesel fuel expenses for operating locomotives.
The sector attracted foreign investments to the tune of $1,252 million during the year, a 12.8 per cent decline compared to $1,437 million registered in the previous year, according to latest data released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (see table).
Schneider Electric, the $20-billion French engineering major, has identified India's perennial power shortage as a major business opportunity.
Work on the much-delayed dedicated railway freight corridor is expected to begin with contracts worth Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) to be awarded before the end of the current financial year.
With Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee's landslide victory in West Bengal, the Union railways ministry is set to have a new minister soon and a revamped board.
It is now looking at a solution from the Unique Identification Authority of India for ensuring accurate identification of the beneficiaries of its low-cost services.
Fund balances for the current financial year have already been revised downwards by the ministry from the budgeted Rs 5,062 crore to Rs 3,100 crore.
The huge reduction in the government's support for Bhavini has brought down the overall budgetary allocation for nuclear power schemes by 20 per cent.
In a move to help quicken the flagging pace of distribution reforms in the power sector, the Union finance ministry has approved the creation of a Rs 50,000-crore National Electricity Fund - first mooted in the 2008-09 Budget - for attracting investment in this area.
The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group's Delhi Airport Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) would run and maintain the line, which would reduce travel time between the heart of the capital and the Indira Gandhi International Airport to 20 minutes.
This forms about 7.5 per cent of India's projected investment of Rs 5,28,316 crore (Rs 5,283.16 billion) in overall infrastructure during the next financial year and over a fourth of the Rs 1,59,000-crore (Rs 1,590-billion) investment to be made in the electricity sector alone in 2011-12, the terminal year of the current Plan period.
Favours stricter impact mitigation rules, monitoring.
The government's initiative to have trading of electricity with Sri Lanka is likely to bear fruit by mid-2014, with the commissioning of a high capacity power transmission link between the two countries. The two countries are likely to sign an MoU for a Rs 2,500-crore (Rs 25 billion) project.
The central government plans to set up a group of public sector banks headed by State Bank of India (SBI), which would brainstorm on ways to make low-cost funding available for power projects that are being set up under the National Solar Mission.
Areva has 60-Mw of biomass-based power capacity in India. It is looking to also tap the market for nuclear power in a big way.
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