Infrastructure

The push comes as India looks for reliable low-carbon baseload power to support rising electricity demand over the next two decades. According to the Union government’s implementation report on budget announcements, the development of at least 100 GW of nuclear energy by 2047 is considered essential for India’s energy transition, and a formal roadmap for reaching that level has already been prepared and circulated for stakeholder discussions.

The expansion is being driven by a mix of structural factors, including rising internet penetration, widespread smartphone usage, and a strong consumer shift toward mobile-first digital behaviour. Advertisers are increasingly moving budgets to digital channels because they offer sharper audience targeting, real-time campaign tracking and clearer returns on spending compared with traditional media.

The plant, being developed by US-based 3D Glass Solutions, involves an investment of around ₹1,943 crore and will be located at Info Valley. The foundation stone for the facility was recently laid by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, in the presence of Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

As part of the decision, the government extended the deadline for completion of roads and bridges in plain areas, along with roads in hilly areas, till March 2028. For bridges in hilly regions, the completion timeline has been stretched further till March 2029. The Cabinet also cleared the way for works sanctioned before March 31, 2025 but still unawarded to be taken up for tendering and execution.

MoSPI said the system now evaluates infrastructure through multiple lenses including access, quality, utilisation, affordability, and fiscal cost and revenue use. While the ministry has long monitored 11 key sectors through 28 sub-indicators, the new dashboard currently carries 116 indicators across six visible sub-sectors: civil aviation, roads, power, ports-shipping-waterways, telecommunications, and railways.

The biggest structural shift has come from electrification. As of March 2026, 99.6% of India’s broad-gauge network had been electrified, with 69,873 route km electrified out of 70,142 route km, up sharply from 21,801 route km in 2014.

The broader budget data supports the scale of that expansion. The Union Budget’s Budget at a Glance for 2026–27 pegs total capital expenditure at ₹12,21,821 crore, up from a revised estimate of ₹10,95,755 crore in 2025–26. Separately, the Economic Survey 2025–26 noted that the Centre’s capital outlay had already risen from ₹5.92 lakh crore in FY22 to a budgeted ₹11.21 lakh crore for FY26, and argued that infrastructure spending carries a medium-term multiplier of roughly 2.5 to 3.5 times GDP.

The report said the industry attracted an estimated US$ 13–15 billion in investments between 2020 and 2024, with foreign institutional investors contributing nearly 80% of total capital inflows. That trend is expected to continue, with announced projects worth US$ 60–70 billion lined up over the next five years, largely led by hyperscalers and joint ventures seeking to expand capacity in India.

The programme, launched in March 2015, was designed to modernise ports, improve port connectivity, promote port-led industrialisation, support coastal communities, and expand the role of coastal shipping and inland waterways in India’s logistics network. With India’s 11,099-kilometre coastline and nearly 14,500 kilometres of potentially navigable waterways, the maritime sector continues to play a critical role in national trade, handling around 95 per cent of trade by volume and about 70 per cent by value.