Though the government claims to be on the track of achieving double-digit growth in the coming years, most of the infrastructure projects appear to be in doldrums. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its report has said that there seems to be no progress in the field of coal, roads, and crude oil and natural gas production projects.

The report says that national Highways Authority of India (NHAI) ROAD projects are lagging behind – 21.1 per cent of the targets, till April-October last year.The report also found that power generation in the country was behind 2.5 per cent of the targets. In addition to that, thermal and hydel power generation have also lagged behind the targets.

Apart form the power sector, natural gas has also suffered a slump in its production. The production of natural gas at 25,389 Million Cubic Meters was 13.7 lower than the target while the crude oil production witnessed a negative growth and was 6.7 lower than the target set.

The power shortage in the country during April- October 2009 was 9.8 per cent, which was lower than the shortage of 10.6 per cent during the corresponding period of previous year. A generating capacity of 5767 MW was added during April-October 2009 against the target of 7481 MW for the period,” said the report.

The report also says that the targets on cargo handling of imports were not achieved. The major ports in the country handled cargo less that 5.5 lower than the targets set for the period. Major ports like Haldia, Cochin, New Mangalore and Jawaharlal Nehru and Ennore handled less cargo. At the same time, air cargo traffic was also down.

Setback occurred in the telecommunication sector also due to the surrender of 10.83 lakh connection in the public sector. "The mass surrendering of wired telephone connections by the public sector (BSNL, MTNL) was due to non-payment of bills and preference for cell phones,” said report, adding that 966.45 lakh new mobile connections were provided by both public and private companies.