New routes for development.

From increased allocations to new funding routes to ambitious targets, the infrastructure sector has quite a bit to cheer in this Budget. Infrastructure stocks gained between 1 and 6 per cent, for a good reason.

The Budget allocates Rs. 37,880 crore for roads. But more ambitious is the target of constructing 8,500 km of national highways by the end of the current fiscal as the highest-ever annual total the NHAI has reached is 2,844 km in 2012-13.

Achievement of even half of this target is good news for listed infrastructure companies. The funds allocated will also allow awarding of a larger number of projects on an engineering-procurement-construction basis; this route has more takers now than those on a build-operate-transfer model and bidding could thus be more successful.


HBL