• You’ve said the external sector has done well. What else?

We’ve made a start in infrastructure. When we spoke a couple of years ago the one big gap I worried about was the gap between what we need and what we’ve got. I don’t think we closed the gap but we now have an operational plan and in each of the infrastructure areas there’s a lot of action compared to two years ago. Infrastructure takes time but whether you look at ports, airports, roads and more recently in the railways, there are new projects, new ways of doing things and very big plans for investment.

• Is it to your satisfaction so far?

If we achieve what we have planned, yes. For the Eleventh Plan we have chalked out a big investment programme covering both private and public sector investment in infrastructure — almost up to 350 billion dollars which is Rs 16 lakh crore. That’s a significant increase from what we are doing now. A lot of the increase is going to come through public private partnership. The main focus of the government has been, first, getting the idea of public private partnership accepted because traditionally we’ve built infrastructure through the public sector. Second, to put in place a process that will make choices transparent and that will make people realise that what we are doing is putting private money into public projects and not public money into private projects. In roads, ports and railways a lot of the process issues have got sorted out and things will now start moving.

... contd.