When I came to India last year, I first focused on finding assets to finance. I started with some very small projects. These were portfolios of rooftops or small utility scale projects that gave us an understanding about the issues here. I´d also been advising the Aditya Birla group prior to moving, with the previous firm I was working with in New York.

In 2010, when GST was announced, with the promises of a trillion dollars of investments in logistics, we at DHL decided to make our company GST ready. We looked at four key parameters- investment in warehouses, transport, training, and IT.

First of all, when we talk about a project, it is not only about the project but the risks associated with it. When it is an Indian investor, the risks are lesser in nature. However, a foreign investor comes in looking at a lot of other risk factors as well.

It-¦s a very relevant point since $1 trillion is required for infrastructure spending as estimated by the 12th Five Year Plan and you need long-term low-cost funds. Clearly, the major supplier of those, the public sector banks historically, are not going to be able to fill this requirement.

There isn´t a simple answer or cause to this. The way I look at it is a two-fold answer. Firstly, we are a water stressed country, with our population hovering around 1.2 billion and with the increasing population, this situation is likely to get worse.

The Indian mobile telephony industry currently has a cumulative debt of over Rs 300,000 crore with many operators even making negative returns on their investments.

Roads and highways sector has observed a significant growth over the past few years compared to the other heavy civil engineering sectors such as power and water. The growth has come, especially in the EPC mode of the business, whereas PPP and annuity based projects have also witnessed a few bids.

The major policy initiatives of MoRTH in recent past are as follows: Exit Policy: The cabinet recently allowed private developers to exit all operational BOT projects two years from start of operations.

Anil Kumar Gupta, Chairman & Managing Director, CONCOR, expects a significant progress in the Indian logistics sector and highlights the expectations from the government initiatives.