To provide fillip to public-private partnership in the infrastructure sector, the Planning Commission is organising a meet which would focus on roping in corporates to fund mega projects in the sector.
As part of the initiative, Planning Commission is organising a one-day conference on 'Building Infrastructure: Opportunities and Challenges' on October 7.
The conference will focus on the country's strategy for meeting the large requirement of funds for the infrastructure sector.
Modest estimates put the investment requirement for large scale social sector projects at Rs 3,00,000 crore (Rs 3,000 billion) during the next five years.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said that the financing requirements of infrastructure are so large that no amount of resource mobilisation within the public sector can meet this challenge, Singh said.
"Recourse to private capital is, therefore, inevitable for sustaining the growth momentum," he said.
Ahluwalia has said that considerable work is needed to create an enabling environment which must not only attract private investment but must also be seen to provide services at reasonable cost and in a transparent manner. India is the world's fourth largest economy, based on purchasing power parity, and is growing at 8 per cent per annum.
This robust growth has put enormous pressure on the country's physical infrastructure such as power, roads, ports, airports and railways, which were already carrying a significant deficit from the past.
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