Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports and Railways

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies III:

• Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

The words 'etc.' leave the list open, so telecom, urban and digital infrastructure and the ways of financing infrastructure belong here too.

Topics in detail

Infrastructure and growth

• Economic and social infrastructure; infrastructure as a public good
• Financing: budget, market borrowing, public-private partnership (PPP) models (BOT, BOOT, EPC, hybrid annuity model), viability gap funding
• National Infrastructure Pipeline (2019), National Monetisation Pipeline (2021), infrastructure investment trusts, NaBFID
• PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (2021) for multimodal connectivity; National Logistics Policy (2022)

Energy

• Installed capacity by source: coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, solar, wind and other renewables
• Electricity Act, 2003; generation, transmission and distribution; the finances of distribution companies (UDAY, 2015)
• Access: rural electrification and household connections (Saubhagya, 2017)
• Renewable energy: the National Solar Mission (2010), solar parks, rooftop solar, wind; India's non-fossil capacity goal for 2030
• Nuclear power and the three-stage programme
• Energy efficiency (LED lighting under UJALA), green hydrogen, energy storage, the grid and 'One Nation One Grid'

Ports and waterways

• Major ports (Union) and non-major ports (States); the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021
• Sagarmala Programme (2015): port modernisation, port-led industrialisation, coastal shipping
• Inland waterways: National Waterways Act, 2016; National Waterway 1 on the Ganga and the multimodal terminal at Varanasi
• Issues: turnaround time, hinterland connectivity, shipbuilding

Roads

• National highways, State highways and rural roads; the National Highways Authority of India
• Golden Quadrilateral, North-South and East-West corridors, Bharatmala Pariyojana (2017), expressways
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (2000)
• Road safety and electronic tolling (FASTag)

Airports and civil aviation

• Airports Authority of India; PPP airports and greenfield airports
• UDAN regional connectivity scheme (2016)
• Air cargo, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), and the drone policy

Railways

• Network, gauge conversion and electrification
• Dedicated Freight Corridors (Eastern and Western)
• Semi-high-speed trains, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project, station redevelopment
• Finances of the railways: operating ratio, cross-subsidy of passenger fares by freight
• Metro rail in cities

Other infrastructure

• Telecom and digital: BharatNet, mobile networks and 5G, data centres
• Urban infrastructure: Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT (2015)
• Water supply and sanitation infrastructure
• Storage and logistics parks; multimodal logistics

Issues in infrastructure

• Land acquisition and environmental clearances as causes of delay
• Cost and time overruns; stalled projects
• Risk sharing in PPPs; renegotiation of contracts; the Kelkar Committee (2015) on revisiting PPP
• Regulators for infrastructure sectors: electricity regulatory commissions, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority, TRAI
• Climate-resilient and green infrastructure
• Maintenance of assets once built; user charges and their acceptance

Overlaps

• General Studies VI: infrastructure, transport network, energy resources and public-private partnership in Uttar Pradesh.