Successful cities will be those that connect workers to jobs and close the digital divide between high-income and low-income neighborhoods. The White House notes that broadband speeds have doubled since and that more than four out of five people now have high-speed wireless broadband, adoption rates for low-income and minority households remains low about 43 and 56 percent, respectively. Our economy is changing as fast as our society.
Over 83 percent of world economic growth in the next five years is expected to occur outside the United States, and because of rapid globalization, it will be concentrated in cities. This offers an unprecedented opportunity for American businesses to export more goods and services and to create high-quality jobs at home. The diverse energy boom also disrupts our infrastructure. Natural gas needs new truck, pipeline and rail networks.
Rooftop solar panels have rattled electric utilities, which are scrambling to find ways to incorporate and store the energy they produce while keeping the grid operating. At the same time, finding the money to pay for the development of a smart electricity grid and for clean energy presents challenges, as hundreds of thousands of small and large projects are projected to come online in coming decades.
High-profile natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, drew attention to problems with water infrastructure. Cities are working to capture storm and rain water rather than building costly pipes to sluice it away. Over and above the new types of needed infrastructure is a big change in how projects are financed. Despite the importance of infrastructure, the U. It accounts for about 2. This would add about 1.
Split between Republicans and Democrats, the federal government appears incapable of doing this. For the foreseeable future, the Highway Trust Fund, the State Revolving Funds for water and others will face cuts and squeezed budgets. Other experiments, such as a National Infrastructure Bank, seem prohibitively complex in the current political environment. And of course, rising interest costs on federal debt, increases in entitlement spending and declining traditional revenue sources such as the gasoline tax mean that competition for limited resources is fiercer than ever.
Some cities and states are enjoying budget surpluses because property and sales tax revenues. But most localities will take years to build back their reserves, repay additional debt incurred during the recession and pay for deferred maintenance on infrastructure. And though interest rates remain at historically low levels, the ability of many governments to borrow from capital markets is hindered by debt caps and weak credit ratings.
Despite gradual acceptance in the past decade that infrastructure is vital to economic growth, debate of spending remains an amorphous and simplistic. Infrastructure is made up of interrelated sectors as diverse as a water treatment plant is from an airport, a wind farm, a gas line or a broadband network.
The focus on infrastructure in the abstract led to unrealistic silver-bullet policy solutions that fail to capture the unique and economically critical attributes of each. In reality, each infrastructure sector involves fundamentally different design frameworks and market attributes.
And they are owned, regulated, governed and operated by different public and private entities. The federal role should not be exaggerated. American infrastructure in selected, built, maintained, operates and paid for in a diverse and fragmentary fashion. For other sectors, such as freight rail, telecommunications, and clean energy, the federal role is more limited.
Roads, bridges and transit must be paid for largely from public funds. Ballot measures have been important for fund raising, particularly at the local level, because general obligation bonds require popular approval. Many cities are following this trend. Metropolitan transportation initiatives are popular among voters. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, 71 percent of measures were passed in as were 73 percent in While state level ballot measures on infrastructure spending are far less common, in , eight states voted to raise taxes for such projects.
This includes both conservative strongholds such as Wyoming and Democrat-controlled legislatures in states such as Maryland. A number of cities are using market mechanisms that capture the increased value in land that accrues from infrastructure. Unlike Singapore, Cambodia does not offer technologically advanced mass transit systems, thus presenting another issue hindering Cambodian lifestyles.
In particular, policies were put in place in to invest in Cambodian infrastructure. These improvements will be dispersed over different projects. One significant improvement is the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway , set to open in This mile long expressway will connect the two major cities in Cambodia to further stimulate the economy.
Additionally, the expressway will reduce the travel time between the two cities by half. This is an incredible start to flourishing infrastructure in Cambodia. Considering the difference in foundational support between Cambodia and Singapore, it is vital to highlight the impacts of dependable roadways and mass transit systems.
As Cambodia moves forward with its internal developments, international humanitarian organizations and countries worldwide must discuss how global poverty can be alleviated with proper infrastructures in impoverished countries. Hopefully, with international discussion and support, nations worldwide can soon take a step forward to a better quality of life.
Why is Infrastructure Important? Besides, for achieving rapid economic growth on sustainable basis, there is need for rise in productivity. The rise in labour productivity ultimately requires greater use of electric power which is obtained from primary sources such as coal, oil and gas.
Consumption of energy by the various countries of the world varies significantly. The United States and other developed countries use or consume much higher energy per capita as compared to the developing countries such as India. We give in Table It will be seen from the table that per capita energy use in in USA was kilograms of oil equivalent while in India it was only , that is, energy use per capita in the USA is 15 times higher as compared to India.
In fact, the data in the table shows that there is a very high degree of positive correlation between per capita energy use and per capita income of a country. That is, the greater the energy used per capita of a country, the higher the per capita income and productivity levels of a country. This shows the importance of increasing energy production for economic growth.
This will meet around 70 per cent of expected energy consumption of the Indian economy and the balance will be met through imports. Thus, even though the domestic production of energy in India is projected to increase significantly, dependence on imports will continue to remain high, particularly for crude oil where nearly 78 per cent of the demand will have to be met through imports by the end of the 12th Plan i.
Further, it is estimated by the Planning Commission that the import dependence for coal, liquefied natural gas LNG and crude oil taken together in the terminal year of the 12th Plan is likely to remain at the 11th Plan level of 36 percent. India has both non-renewable energy resources such as coal, lignite, petroleum and natural gas and renewable energy sources such as hydro, wind, solar, biomass.
This large increase in the additional capacity is not impossible but actual delivery of power depends critically on solving serious fuel availability problems that arise relating to coal and natural gas. Uncertainties about fuel availability would seriously dampen investment activity in this sector, especially since about half of the generating capacity is expected to come from the private sector and they will not be able to obtain the required finance if fuel supply issues are not resolved.
Road transport is another important infrastructure which is essential for movement of goods, raw materials and fuel. The availability of transport expands the market for agricultural and industrial products and thereby enables the producers to produce on a large scale and reap the benefits of the economies of scale. Besides, transport development helps to open up more regions and resources for production.
Some parts of a country may have abundant forests and reserves of mineral resources but they remain unexploited for production because they are remote and inaccessible through means of transport. There is thus a need for linking these backward regions with building of roads and railways so that their untapped mineral and forest resources be utilised for production.
India has one of the largest road networks in the world spread over around 49 lakh kilometers. It comprises national highways, expressways, state highways, district roads with length details given in Table In the last few years there has been some progress in the development of national highways and in rural roads but much more needs to the done.
The National Highways NHs with a total length of 92, km serve as the arterial network of the country. A total length of around 22, km has been completed till March There are some difficulties in the way of developing national highways due to acquisition of land from the owners from which national highways have to pass through.
In India a special effort is needed to speed up road connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir, North East and other special category States. A good start had been made in the development of roads in North East in the Eleventh Five Year Plan and is proposed to be pursued with greater vigour in the 12th Plan in which enhanced connectivity of North East has been given a high priority.
Furthermore, the construction of roads and upgradation of national highways NHs in the districts affected by Left-Wing extremism in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh have been taken up for inclusive growth of these areas.
Railways are an important infrastructure as a means of transport whose expansion and efficient working is required for rapid growth of the economy. The demands of a growing economy such as ours require railways to expand its freight network, increase its ability to carry larger weight per wagon and the efficiency of the rail system for faster delivery.
Besides, the railway requires improving the reach and quality of its passenger services. To meet the growing demand for carrying goods and passengers the current focus of Indian Railway should be the creation of additional capacity, modernisation of its existing network, improvement in asset utilisation and productivity.
Besides, it should pay attention to modernisation of its rolling stock and maintenance practices to bring about overall improvement in the quality of its services. It may be further noted that the Indian Railways is expected to generate its internal resources for its expansion and modernisation. The broad objective of Indian Railways should be to develop a strategy to be a part of an effective multi-modal transport system and to ensure an environment- friendly and economically-efficient transport system.
Airport development is a basic infrastructure requirement for international connectivity, especially because the demand for air travel is projected to grow rapidly in India. There had been a significant progress of airport development in the Eleventh Plan period with the development of four new airports at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai under public-private participation PPP mode.
To expand airport infrastructure in India, modernisation of airport infrastructure in metro and non-metro cities and construction of Greenfield airports are under consideration of the government.
Development of 35 non-metro airports which have been identified based on regional connectivity, development of regional hubs etc. Out of 35 metro airports work has been completed in 33 metros and in the remaining two airports of Vadodra and Khajuraho work is in progress. Ports are another important infrastructure for international trade connectivity. It is mainly through these that the goods are exported to other countries and the goods and raw materials are imported.
Without efficient ports it is not possible to expand foreign trade. In the Eleventh Plan period 12 some problems were faced for expansion of the Indian ports because several issues had to be resolved for the proposed public-private participation PPP in this connection. These have now been resolved and it is expected that in the next five years there will be significant progress in this area.
As regards minor ports which come under State governments, there has been good progress in the Eleventh Plan period. During major and non-major ports in India handled a total cargo of million tonnes reflecting increase of 5.
This can mainly be attributed to an increase of 1. In contrast, traffic at non-major ports increased at around 9. Telecommunications occupy an important place in the modern economy. E-commerce and E-governance require the efficiency of telecommunication services. The companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal are engaged in E-commerce for sale of goods. They work through mobiles and internet network. Besides, many BPO companies are providing outsourcing services through telecommunication.
Without the efficient telecommunication system, the business through E-commerce and BPO is not possible. Telecommunications and the associated increase in Internet connectivity is a productivity enhancing development and India is well based to benefit from this. Telecommunications in India have seen impressive expansion and large investment in the past several years with a tele-intensity increasing from
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