By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAY 03, 2015: THE Prime Minister yesterday chaired a high-level meeting on infrastructure. Besides a broad overview of the infrastructure scenario in the country, the meeting focused on the specific sectors of rural infrastructure, power, coal, renewable energy and petroleum and natural gas.

The Prime Minister reviewed the status of stalled projects in the infrastructure sector. He was apprised of the steps being taken to enhance infrastructure creation in accordance with the Prime Minister's vision for the 75th year of India's independence.

The Prime Minister stressed on the need for Government departments to work towards initializing spending of the budget, in a focused manner right from the start of the financial year. He was given a detailed overview of the plans of various Ministries for completion of pending projects within the current financial year. The Prime Minister asked for specific data to be collected and presented on priority areas such as toilets, affordable housing and smart cities. He said that in the urban areas, one of the priorities should be in creation of waste to wealth, and efficient systems for waste water disposal and solid waste management in 500 cities.

Reviewing rural infrastructure, the Prime Minister directed that the highest priority be accorded to the work envisaged under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana. He said irrigation potential of all reservoir projects should be realized to the extent possible.

In the power sector, the Prime Minister reiterated his emphasis on electrification of the unconnected villages at the earliest. A roadmap on this was presented to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister inquired about the progress on renewable energy goals, and directed maximum focus on this area. He said public spaces such as railway stations should be priority areas for adopting energy efficient technologies, and renewable energy.

Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Suresh Prabhu and Ashok Gajpati Raju were present at the meeting. Senior officers from NITI Aayog, various infrastructure Ministries and PMO were also present.