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Delegations go and come, but where is the investment?

In June, Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramaniam led a high-powered delegation to the United States. The delegation was unique. It consisted of a bunch of India's top bureaucrats on a sales pitch to invest in infrastructure projects. For all those who think that investment plans in India get entangled in red tape, here is a golden opportunity.

Or is it?

According to Subramaniam, the estimated investment required over the next decade to keep infrastructure on track with the projected growth of the economy is in the range of $ 400 billion. And a large part of this investment has to come in from the private sector, both domestic and foreign. In 1996-97, companies from the US invested around $ 6.3 billion in India. This year Subramaniam's boys hope to attract more.

Subramaniam's platter has an impressive list of projects to offer. So where's the catch? Have a little bit of patience and go through this list before I share some of my apprehension:

Power: Liquid fuel-based projects: state projects have been finalised. Up for grabs for interested foreign promoters.

• The 1,000 mw Nabinagar coal-based megaproject in Bihar for which tenders are expected to be floated within three months.
• Six transmission projects to be available for competitive bidding.

Oil and natural gas: Includes oil exportation, setting up liquefied natural gas import facilities, refinery projects (worth $ 6.28 billion), strategic crude oil storage tankage ($ 0.57 billion), new port facilities ($0.86 billion) and product pipelines ($1.14 billion).

Coal: non-cooking coal blocks for mining (projects wroth about $7 billion to $ 8 billion)

Minerals: Project opportunities in exploration, mining, metallurgy/mineral processing

Roads: Project opportunities worth at least $ 8.3 billion.

Urban infrastructure: Project opportunities in water supply, solid waste management, urban public transport, roads, bridges and flyovers, housing, land and township infrastructure development (returns are estimated to be over 20 per cent and a fresh package of concessions is being worked out).

Telecommunications: Investment opportunities in basic telephony, cellular services, radio paging, VSATs, e-mail and internet-linked services, other services (video conferencing, voice mail, etc) and equipment manufacturing. (Total investment $ 53 billion).

Civil aviation: Twelve private sector-aided airports to come up in the next five years, modernisation of airspace management and infrastructure, opening up of the air cargo services.

Ports: Project opportunities in 10 ports sites (costing $ 6.67 billion)

To make this huge investment offer more tempting most of the department secretaries, who accompanied Subramaniam, have obtained no objection certificates for their projects.

So why am I still cynical about this whole exercise of selling India Inc?

Let's check our track record. Five years ago we were gung-ho when, to improve our infrastructure, we identified seven fast-track power projects wherein global firms could participate. Where are we today? The fast track was a joke. Of the seven only one power project has produced more than a watt of electricity.

In the oil and gas sector, except for the lubes market where have you seen products rolling from foreign participation, there has been very little action. The liquefied petroleum gas parallel marketing by private companies (flagged off in 1994) has been stifled thanks to the monopoly of the public sector units. Pipelines that have been laid carry promises nothing else.

In civil aviation, million of dollars worth of equipment were bought to modernise our air traffic systems. But they still haven't been used, air crashes notwithstanding. Private airport projects were cleared for take off only to be grounded later.

In the urban infrastructure sector, there has not been a single foreign private investment project that has taken off, be it in solid waste management or mass rapid transport systems.

Basic telephonic services is still tangled in the contentious issue of funding and the limits of foreign equity. Private basic services which should have been in operation by now will take almost 18 more months before they become a reality.

When De Beers came to mine diamonds in Madhya Pradesh, there was a sparkle amongst investors. Two years later, they still haven't been able to search the surface, leave alone dig.

I could go on and on, but the point is, is the future going to be different from the past? If it is -- and despite being a cynic I genuinely hope it is -- then maybe there is a lot to gain from the visit of T S R Subramaniam and the gang.

I am not for a moment implying that there is nothing to gain at all from such delegations. Sure, major investments take time. The billion dollar question is how much time.

Do we have enough of it to sit back and wait for them to trickle in?

And should we pat ourselves when delegation such as these high-powered ones, instead of sewing up say $ 20 billion worth of investments, were to finally return home with $ 1 billion in the kitty?

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