Independence Day 2022: India's mammoth infrastructure growth as Gati Shakti sets the tone

From the days when the British-era bridges were appreciated for their sturdiness to the day when the 'golden joint' connecting the two halves of the Chenab bridge (the World's highest arch bridge) finally getting completed Saturday, August 13, India's infrastructure story has come a long way.

Two sets of numbers tell the story - the overall outlay of first-ever Union Budget for 1947-48 announced by then Finance Minister R K Shanmukham Chetty was Rs 197.29 crore, while the budget increase for the infrastructure development in the budget for 2022-23 over the previous year's expenditure has been increased by 35.4% to Rs 7.50 lakh crore.

While the core infrastructure that the Britishers left India with was built with the objective of serving their interests, the aim of developing infrastructure in the post-colonial era was to serve the country's economic interests and the common masses. 

The major building blocks for any country’s infrastructure are Roads, Railways, Logistics, Power, Digital and Airports, etc. Following is a look at how India has developed in these areas since Independence. 

Roads

India has built the second largest road system in the world stretching across two million miles including national highways, major district roads, state highways and rural roads.

When India attained independence, the total length of National Highways (NHs) was 21,378 km, which has now reached 1.40 lakh km with a total road size of over 62 lakh km, making it the world’s second-largest road network. 

Railway electrification

Since 1925, when India ran its first electric train between Bandra Victoria Terminus to Kurla, the country has electrified over 83% of its broad gauge network, covering 52,247 route km. India plans to electrify all routes by 2024.  

Airways

With the humble beginning of flying a single-engine De Havilland Puss Moth Tata Airlines plane transporting mail from Karachi to Chennai in 1932, piloted by JRD Tata, the commercial Indian aviation sector has travelled a long journey to now when the aviation industry is valued at a market size of $16 billion to emerge as the third largest aviation market in the world. 

Power

The power sector in India has seen a tremendous surge since Independence when the total power generation capacity (Utilities and non-utilities) has powered up from a scanty 1,362 MW in 1947 to 459.15 GW at the end of March 2021. 

The per capita electricity consumption, which was just 16.3 units in 1947 has increased to 1161 units in 2020-21. 

Digital Infrastructure

As India gears up to adopt the 5G technology this year, it has come a long way from having just 82,000 telephone connections in 1947, when India’s telecom network was highly unreliable and available to just a small section of the privileged population. Currently, India has the third largest telecom network in the world and the second largest mobile network with 1.2 billion subscribers in May 2021.

Under the BharatNet project, which intends to take broadband connectivity with high-speed optic fibre cable to the 2,25,000 gram panchayats, the government has been able to connect 1,71,000 gram panchayats or village blocks.

Logistics

After 75 years of independence, India has gained 47th spot as logistics efficient economy in the world, as per the 2018 Logistics Performance Index. According to a 2021 Niti Aayog report, the logistics sector contributes 5% of India’s GDP, giving employment to around 22 million people.  

Infrastructure status to Data centres and Logistics sector

As India progressed, it also changed the perspective on how infrastructure was defined. Given the growing importance of logistics and data centres, they were given infrastructure status by the central government.

India is also slowly growing its data centre capacity with a total of 127 data centres operating in the territory currently ranking 14th globally. It’s important to note in the Union budget 2022, FM Nirmala Sithraman accorded ‘Infrastructure’ status to data centres.

The government in February also granted the same status to the Logistics sector.

Gati-Shakti mission

The Rs 100 lakh crore Gati-Shakti mission launched by the Government of India is aimed at reducing the supply chain costs of transporting goods by revolutionising the country’s infrastructure capacities. 

Notably, the logistics and supply chain costs are over 12% of the Gross Domestic Product in India, way higher than the world average of 8%. The mission targets to build national highways, which will take the overall length of NHs to the 2 lakh km mark. The plan also envisions the building of over 200 new airports, heliports and water aerodromes.

Image: Twitter/Ashwini Vaishnaw