Question

growth and development of the country in the way of providing better facilities and service to the individual signifies​

Answer 1

Lack of adequate infrastructure not only holds lack economic development, it also causes additional costs in terms of time, effort and money of the people for accessing essential social services such as healthcare and education. Emphasizing the importance of adequate infrastructure, authors of Economic Survey of India for the Year 2013 -14 quite rightly write, “Rural economic growth in recent years has put enormous pressure on existing infrastructure particularly on transport, energy and communication. Unless it is significantly improved infrastructure will continue to be a bottleneck for growth and obstacle to poverty reduction”. In other words, it is the challenge to ensure strong, sustainable and balanced development through integration of the economy with environmentally sustainable development of infrastructure.

It may be noted that with large investment in infrastructure during the last decade (2003-04 to 2013-14) India has become the second fastest growing economy of the world but in the two years (2012- March 2014) economic growth slowed down and this has been mainly due to the stalled infrastructure projects which held back economic development. It is therefore urgently needed that infrastructure projects be given environment clearance quickly and investment in them be speeded up if the Indian economy is to be brought back on the fast growth trajectory.

The availability of good quality infrastructure raises productivity levels in the economy and brings down costs of the enterprises. Besides, the availability of adequate infrastructure helps to expand trade not only within a country by improving transport facilities but also promote foreign trade through improvement of ports and airports. It also helps to diversify production by the firms as they are able to get the required supplies of raw materials and other inputs from the places where these are available in abundance. Furthermore, with improved infrastructure the firms can produce goods in accordance with the demands of the people of different regions and countries.

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