Infrastructure is ours.

When Indian companies are desperate to get out of highways projects why are foreign funds and equity investors keen to buy stakes in such projects? Seems that Uniquest Infra Ventures, a joint venture between Malaysian Government sovereign wealth fund, Khazana National and IDFC wants to buy stakes in a dozen road projects. TOI,12 March. SBI Macquarie Infrastructure Fund wishes to invest Rs 200 billion in projects nearing completion, Tata Realty is interested in 4 projects and Morgan Stanley wants to buy into KMC Construction and has a 15% stake in the Surat Hazira project. Even the Canadian Public Sector Pension Board wants a share of the Panipat-Jalandhar highway project. It is well known that companies had bid for projects based on wildly optimistic prediction of traffic flows and revenue collection through tolls which have not been fulfilled because of extremely high taxes on petrol and uncontrolled inflation. Companies are unable to service their debts and desperate to get out. So, why are foreign funds interested in buying into such projects? They are not doing it to benefit Indians, that is for sure, so they must be looking to making handsome profits on their investments. Apart from some sections highways are not used by private cars but mainly by trucks which carry most of the goods, especially fruits and vegetables, from one part of the country to another. To get good returns on their investment foreign companies will jack up toll charges to many times the present value, adding to prices and sending inflation even higher. Strangely, no one is worried about foreign control of a monopoly business. A top government official said," It will not only free up capital for Indian developers but increase overseas participation. In addition, the Indian players will have resources to bid for new projects and help revive interest in the sector." He does not explain why it is a good thing for foreigners to control vital infrastructure. These funds are not interested in building highways but want to buy completed projects or those nearing completion. Clearly their sole interest is in making profits by controlling toll collections at our expense. Apparently politicians in Andhra, Jharkhand and the BJP have stakes in such projects and would undoubtedly make handsome profits. Also public sector banks will be able to recoup their loans and reduce their Non Performing Assets. Meanwhile auction of CDMA licenses raised only Rs 36.39 billion when the government had expected 10 times that amount. Only one company, Sistema Shyam Teleservices bid for 8 circles out of 11 it had applied for. It will now shut operations in Maharashtra, UP and Mumbai for which there were no bidders. Infrastructure belongs to the people and must be state of the art and cheap to use. Sadly the scoundrels see this as a way to make money to buy luxuries for themselves.