Dun & Bradstreet India is pleased to present the inaugural edition of India’s Leading Infrastructure Companies 2007. The publication is an attempt to highlight some of the key achievements and issues related to the infrastructure sector in the country and create a valuable ready reference tool on India’s leading infrastructure companies.

India’s Leading Infrastructure Companies 2007 provides information pertaining to some of the major sub segments of the country’s infrastructure sector viz. power, telecom, construction, road, railways, aviation, irrigation etc.

The Indian economy has witnessed an unprecedented growth rate of over 9% in the past couple of years, and continues to display strong fundamentals in the current year. The Government of India aims to achieve average GDP growth rate of 9% over the next 5 years. The role of securing strong and reliable infrastructure support has therefore magnified manifold, so as to enable the country’s overall economic growth. Although the infrastructure sector witnessed a strong growth rate of 8.6% in FY07 against 6.2% in FY06, providing adequate infrastructure facilities to keep up with the growing pace of economic development is proving to be a challenge. With India having the second largest road network in the world, a telecom subscription base increasing every month by around 6.5 million and projected power demand to be around 974.78 BU by 2011-12, the infrastructure sector holds great potential in the near future.

It is evident that the current level of investments on infrastructure are not sufficient to bridge the gap between demand and supply. In India, historically, investments in infrastructure development has been mainly through Central and State Governments and therefore, private sector participation was negligible till a few years back. Efforts are now being made to increase the participation of the private sector players to plug financial and technical deficits and to ensure a faster rate of delivery of infrastructure projects. Conducive policies with a greater level of transparency are being implemented to boost private investors’ confidence. A significant increase in project execution through Public-Private-Partnerships, commonly known as the PPP model, is an indication of the interest shown by private players in building national infrastructure.

The importance of infrastructure to sustain economic growth and industries robust growth prospects prompted us to launch this edition of India’s Leading Infrastructure Companies 2007. The publication covers various development inititatives taken by the Government and proposed investments in various segments of infrastructure facilities in the country in the next five years. It showcases the performance and investment plans of some of the leading infratructure companies.

I hope you enjoy reading India’s Leading Infrastructure Companies 2007 and look forward to receiving your suggestions.

Dr Manoj Vaish
President & CEO - India
Dun & Bradstreet