The Lessons Our Infra Push Can Learn From The IT Sector

Context: While the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and increased Budget outlay in 2021-22 offer great impetus to the infrastructure sector, the onus is now on implementation agencies to upgrade capabilities.

Budget 2021 emphasis on infrastructure sector

• Declared one of the six pillars vital for India’s growth story.
• Given a significant allocation of Rs 5.54 trillion, a sizeable increase of 34.5% (over the previous year)
• Announcement of 7,400 projects planned for the country’s Rs 111 trillion NIP.

Challenges

• Execution at scale: To execute ideas and proposals on the ground on time.
• Culture of delays: Around 578 infrastructure projects were delayed and the average time overrun more than three years. - Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
• Capacity gap: Implementation agencies lack knowledge and capability to execute at scale and time.
  • More than 25,000 capable project managers will be required to deliver NIP.

Solutions: lessons to be learned from IT industry

• De-bottlenecking of financing needs
• Digital supervision and sustained monitoring of progress:
  • E.g. UK has launched Project Delivery Capability Framework that clearly articulates the competencies and subsequent development plans needed by such professionals.
  • Capability Maturity Model (CMM), a five-level process improvement framework has become the hallmark of the tech industry. Every large IT company (Infosys) in India has achieved CMM level 5.
  • India needs to finalize a unified Project Management Model (PMM) (with the states) to drive step changes in project execution capabilities of its implementation agencies.
• Innovation in procurement processes
• Upgrading the capacity of the workforce:
  • Creating new entities that may hire private-sector talent.
  • Launch a skilling/certification programme on Mission Karamyogi platform for capability-creation.
  • Involve existing top performers among project managers, in delivery of experience-based training and also plugging talent gaps with private-sector recruits.
  • Devise a mechanism to identify, develop and accelerate career paths of good project managers.
  • Communicate expectations actively with private-sector and stakeholders.