Addressing a press conference Arun Bharat Ram, chairman, CII (northern region) said that the aim of the event is to look at areas beyond telecom and power.

He further said that the event will focus on areas like roads, bridges, highway, ports, inland containers stations and urban infrastructure including housing, sanitation, drainage system and mixed used townships.

According to Bharat Ram, these areas pertain to public good and hence the event will enhance private public partnership.

He further said that the union budget 1998-99 has committed to provide a stimulus to the infrastructure sector through larger public and private investment. He added that the budget allows for a 35 per cent increase in the plan outlay for the key infrastructure sectors.

Bharat Ram observedthat the current national agenda identifies roads and highways, housing and urban development as priority areas. He felt that the need of the hour is to identify the bottlenecks in the process of privatisation process and set the stage for rapid development in this sector. Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman, Infranet'98 and infrastructure sub-committee of CII (northern region) said that the event would be first of its kind in the country primarily focusing on surface transport, urban infrastructure, industrial estates and mixed-use townships covering the entire gamut of roads, bridges, highways, ports, airports, housing, urban utilities, related policies, financing and legal issues.

Chatterjee further said that the event would significantly address conceptual issues by structuring a combination of real life case studies and privatisation opportunities coupled with 400 business suites for on-line dailoguing between sponsors and developers in the sector.

On the scope of the event Chatterjee added that the meetwill cover project developers, state government industrial and infrastructure development corporations, state government transport department, tariff regulatory bodies, investment banks, investment banks, infrastructure development finance companies, multilateral funding agencies, project consultants, contractors, equipment suppliers, material vendors, legal community, insurance companies and industry associations.