Government eyes foreign exchange reserves for infrastructure

Jalgaon(Maharashtra)/ Choti Losal(Rajasthan) -- Residents of Choti Losal village in Rajasthan do not consider their village any more small after their daughter-in-law Pratibha Patil today got elected as country‘s first woman President.

Though the 13th presidential poll witnessed the defeat of another Rajasthani, Bhairon Singh Sekhawat, people of this small hamlet, located 150 kilometres from Jaipur, have full support for her daughter-in-law who came to be associated with this place on July 7, 1965 after marrying to Devisingh Shekhawat.

Elaborate preparations were in place since today morning and DJ‘s were called in to add music to the celebration. As the day progressed and news of Patil‘s leadings started pouring in, unseasonal wave of Holi festival hit the villagers as they started throwing coloured powders (gulal) on each other.

Amidst folk songs and churning of latest Hindi movie songs by the DJ‘s, people celebrated Patils‘s victory, and also expressed hope that she would be able to pay attention to the development of the village.

Hundreds of mile away from Choti Losal, in one of the remote villages in Jalgaon in Maharashtra people celebrated with firecrackers and drumbeats for their daughter Patil‘s victory.

Ecstatic with their ‘daughter‘s‘ victory, who is now a grandmother, residents of Bodhwad tehsil, distributed sweets and burst crackers.

Since morning, girls in the schools here performed cultural dance and crooned songs in praise of Patil.

A procession march was taken out in Jalgaon where people termed Patil‘s election to the country‘s top post as a proud day for the people of Maharashtra.

With no signs of any resentment against Patil‘s family member in the wake of allegations of fraud and murder against them, the residents of Jalgaon extended their celebration late till the evening. Candles were lit and firecrackers illuminated this small town. eanwhile, Congress party headquarters in Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Hyderabad also basked in celebrations with sounds of drumbeats and firecrackers. (ANI)

New Delhi, July 21 (ANI): Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said the Government is banking on private equity inflows and an annual use of five billion dollars from foreign exchange reserves to meet the investment needs of creaky infrastructure.

Chidambaram told a conference on infrastructure here that India will require a 475 billion dollars investment in infrastructure during 2007-12, higher than a previous estimate of 320 billion dollars.

He said a massive private investment will also be needed to meet the growing funding need for infrastructure.

"I think it‘s the private sector party that will bring the equity. There is of course other funding, loan and equity. Blackstone is an example we talk about. Once the project is ready for implementation, I assume the project will hire adequate manpower at adequate compensation. The implementation of the project must be only through qualified technical and other people," he said.

In February, four financial institutions -- Citigroup, Blackstone, Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd and India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL) -- launched a five billion dollar infrastructure fund. In April, another private equity firm

3i tied up with IIFCL.

Chidambaram urged states to come up with bankable projects so that it could be funded by private players.

"The canvas is virtually infinite. Every state, district, taluk can throw up an infrastructural project. In fact if we develop a capacity to promote a shelf infrastructure project, money may become a problem. Today money is not the problem. Problem is we do not have projects which can be implemented," said Chidambaram.

The Finance Ministry was discussing with the Reserve Bank of India ways of using part of foreign exchange reserves, estimated at 218.96 billion dollars as at July 6, for funding infrastructure projects, he said.

India is building more roads, ports, airports, railway tracks, power plants, residential and office complexes to sustain an average annual growth of nine percent in the next five years from an average 8.6 percent in the past four years. It grew 9.4 percent in 2006-07. (ANI)