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India determined to overcome constraint of inadequate infrastructure: PM | India is determined to overcome the constraint of inadequate infrastructure, visiting Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, said on Wednesday. Participating in
the Khazanah Global Lecture Series 2010 on "India's Development Experience here,
Dr. Singh said: "Inadequate infrastructure is a major constraint on our performance
and we are determined to overcome it. In the Eleventh Five Year Plan that ends
in 2011-12, we had targeted investment in infrastructure of 500 billion US dollars.
We hope to step this up to one trillion US dollars in the 12th Plan." He further
urged the Malaysian Government to come to India's assistance in this particular
sector, as it is a country with well known strengths in building infrastructure.
"We welcome greater Malaysian participation in this sector. There are big plans
afoot in India to set up special investment funds that can be used to finance
long-gestation infrastructure projects. We hope to attract Indian and international
funding into these projects," Dr. Singh said. On the issue of agriculture prosperity,
Dr. Singh said: "More than half of our population depends on agriculture for the
bulk of their income. We are increasing our investment in agriculture. We hope
to use our scientific capabilities to create a new growth momentum in agriculture
through a second Green Revolution. This is vital for our food security and to
ensure an inclusive growth process." He also said that the future of the global
economy in the 21st century lies in the knowledge economy, and added that India
is working to strengthen its competitive advantage in this area. "We have increased
the expenditure on science and technology as a proportion of our GDP. We are investing
heavily in both basic and higher education. For the last fifty years, India had
seven Indian Institutes of Technology and one Indian Institute of Science. In
the last five years, we have established eight more IITs and five Indian Institutes
of Science Education and Research. Both higher education and the information technology
sectors are promising areas for India-Malaysia cooperation," he said. He said
that India would like its development processes to be sustainable. "We do not
wish to go down the path followed by the highly industrialised countries. We seek
a model of sustainable development suited to our own needs, circumstances and
genius. This is not an easy task for an emerging economy. We want to strike a
careful balance between our needs of today and those of future generations," the
Prime Minister said.
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