Editorial

This issue marks our twenty-second anniversary. In our past special anniversary issues, we used to review trends and developments in the previous 12 months, examine key issues and discuss the future outlook. This anniversary issue […]

There has been a steady increase in the demand for tunnel construction across the infrastructure space due to the needs of diverse sectors such as railways, metro systems, roads, hydropower, and water supply and sewerage. […]

The pandemic and its economic impact has led to a dramatic crash in global fuel demand and prices have fallen as well. India’s demand too has fallen in sync with the national lockdown. But this […]

The pandemic has had a very negative impact on trade. At the same time, it has emphasised the need for accelerating the digitalisation of all processes at India’s ports. As it stood, the Sagarmalaprogramme did […]

As of now, as is the case in so many other sectors, IR is intent on surviving the pandemic and lockdown without suffering more than the inevitable losses. However, once the lockdown ends, IR will […]

India’s mining sector has never performed to its innate potential because it has been hobbled by many negative factors. While the country possesses substantial natural resources, mining has always been a low-tech undertaking. There are […]

The construction industry is the highest employment generator outside of agriculture and also the largest consumer of steel, cement, bitumen, geosynthetics and other materials. It is, however, highly dependent on infrastructure development for activity – […]

There have been some green shoots of hope for infrastructure financing in the past year, despite the downbeat sentiment due to a decelerating economy. However, new problems have also surfaced. On the plus side of […]

The experience across the UMT sector in India can at best be described as patchy. There has been rapid uptake of metro rail systems. Metros will be operational across 25 cities within the next few […]

Both positive and negative trends are visible in the road sector. Project awards dropped sharply in 2018-19 as the economic slowdown impacted the sector. However, actual construction continued to see a rising trend. In the […]

The past year has seen a lot of activity in the aviation sector. Though there’s been a slowdown in traffic in the past six months, breakneck growth through the past six years has led to […]

Asharp deterioration in the GDP growth rate has led to concerns about the state of the economy. There are differences of opinion about the cause of decline: is it structural or cyclical? However, there is […]

Managing India’s growing energy demand will be a major challenge through till 2030. The country imports over 80 per cent of its crude and over 30 per cent of its gas, and demand is slated […]

The maritime transport sector is heavily dependent on the global trade cycle and that, unfortunately, looks as though it is going into a decline. This means less cargo activity and lower shipping rates for a […]

The reform momentum has slowed down across the power sector in the past year. AT&C losses rose after a couple of years of substantial reductions. The gap between the average cost of supply and the […]

Despite the development of alternative modes of transportation, IR remains the key player in India’s transport and logistics sector. It performs two key roles. It has the crucial economic task of transporting freight and passengers […]

Mining contributes to around 2.5 per cent of GDP. It could, however, contribute a lot more, given India’s abundance of natural resources and the focus on infrastructural development that guarantees strong demand for minerals. However, […]

The construction industry and its value chain and ancillaries depend heavily on infrastructure activity for growth. The sector is also the largest employment generator outside of agriculture. The past two years have seen improvements in […]

The past few months have been challenging for the infrastructure sector as financiers have faced multiple issues. While inflation remained under control, banks suffering from a combination of toxic loans and poor liquidity remained very […]

Rapid urbanisation has been a driver of growth. But it has also stressed inadequate urban infrastructure to breaking point. Public transport is one of the many areas of concern. Poor public transport leads to more […]