Until recently, we used to talk about the cost of funds being too high and, as you are aware, some infrastructure projects have a long gestation period. There is a period of construction and then there are cost overruns and delays.

The air travel boom in India has thrown up a new set of challenges before the country's aviation sector. The airport infrastructure needs to be ramped up on priority for the growth momentum to be sustained in the long term.

Amber Dubey, Partner and India Head of Aerospace & Defence, KPMG feels that a tough relook is required at the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013, as it has made land acquisition for public infrastructure projects such as airports impossible.

Utilities will have to take intelligent decisions in terms of providing, managing and sustaining themselves in the wake of copious amounts of data that get generated by smart grids of the future. Analytics will play a fundamental role in grid asset maintenance and optimisation.

Avery colourful legend has it that during the construction of the railway line from Dibrugarh to Margherita by Assam Railways & Trading Co (AR&TC) in 1867, a herd of logging elephants returned to the camp with their feet covered in crude oil. Even as this led the AR&TC personnel to look for seepages, the site engineer, WL Lake, reportedly cried out in excitement to his workers, 'Dig boy, dig!' on coming to learn about it.

Nitin Prasad, Chairman, Shell Companies in India feels that the government is on the right track with its measures to attract international investments into the oil and gas sector. Speaking to INFRASTRUCTURE TODAY on the sidelines of FICCI's Business and Climate Summit, he also touched upon the British-Dutch multinational's India plans.

Speaking exclusively to INFRASTRUCTURE TODAY, Prof Kirit Parikh, Chairman Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe) and author of the seminal report on pricing methodology for diesel, domestic LPG and PDS, believes that though the federal dispensation is presently offering lucrative terms to investors in the oil and gas sector, it must also ensure that those commitments are adhered to.

The development of India's Smart Cities has to be people-centric if the programme has to succeed in the long-term, a cross section of experts opined. This will entail smarter use of available resources and technologies to improve both infrastructure and service delivery in areas proposed for such development.

I think in many sectors the policies are conducive. The most recent example is the Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Project, where IFC was the lead public-private-partnership (PPP) transaction advisor. We helped structure the bidding process to include a three-tiered payment security mechanism.