Nearly $1.4 trillion investment is needed for infrastructure development in India. The revival and strong performance of the infra sector is key to achieve the ambitious target of $5 trillion economy set by Prime Minister Modi for 2025. By MANJU YAGNIK

In his fifth public address ever since the country’s announced the world’s largest lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic on March 24, Prime Minister Modi gave a clarion call for a ‘Self-Reliant India’ as well as outlined five pillars of the economy, infrastructure, system, demography and demand on which this would be based.

Research and advisory firm CRISIL, has revised its growth outlook for India in FY2021 down to 1.8 per cent, from the 3.5 per cent estimated earlier, factoring the nationwide lockdown to stem the Covid-19 pandemic.

Further extension of the nationwide lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi till May 3 is going to weigh on the economy.

Meanwhile, after coming to power in 2014, though the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) understood the enormity of the problem it decided to make do with engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) as a stop-gap measure.

Multimode transport is yet to be a reality in India. There are no dedicated corridors that connect ports with Indian rail or inland waterways.

According to Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, India could leverage significant reduction in inflation to lower the cost of capital for infrastructure projects over the next five years.

How far is India from witnessing a turnaround in its capital expenditure (capex) cycle? No, the answer to this question is not "just one general election away".

The month of April is all set to narrate Shahrukh Khan's famous dialogue, "don't under estimate the power of the common man".