Cement Energy and Environment

significantly to generating higher agricultural incomes and productive employment oppor– tunities besides promoting access to economic and social services. Studies show that rural roads have a significant impact on poverty reduction as well. The road transport sector has been declared a priority and will have access to loans at favourable conditions. The Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP Act) was passed in order to encourage large industry to enter the road sector. The National Highways Act has been modified to help the reduction of tolls on national motorways, bridges and tunnels. Calcutta's Howrah Bridge is the world's busiest with a daily flow of 57,000 vehicles and innumerable pedestrians. Pri– vate participation in the energy sector has been encouraged with the reduction of import duties, a five-year tax exemption for new energy projects and a 16% return on equity. Airways India's domestic aviation market expansion has been the strongest in the world -tripli ng in the past five years, according to the International Air Transport Association's (lATA) report. India is currently the ninth largest aviation market in the world, according to a RNCOS report "Indian Aerospace Industry Analysis". The Government's open sky policy has attracted many foreign players to enter the market and the industry is growing in terms of both players and the number of aircrafts. Given the strong market fundamentals, it is expected that the civil aviation market will register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 16 per cent during 2010-2013. India's domestic air traffic grew at a rate that is second only to Brazil, according to global figures for June 2011, compiled by lATA. The country's domestic traffic grew by 14 per cent in the same period as against Brazil's 15.1 per cent. Indian airlines reported a continuous growth trend and a strong domestic passenger growth rate of 22.3 per cent in July 2011. Passenger traffic has grown at 18 per cent year on year (y-o-y) basis and the year 2010 closed at 90 million passengers both domestic and international. India is the fastest growing aviation market and expected to be within 45 big aviation markets by 2020 and 3rd in terms of domestic market after US and China. Railways Indian Railways, world's second largest rail network under a single management, has been contributing to the development of the country's industrial and economic landscape below cost and lowering the freight charges for commodities. The high density network connecting the four metropolitan cities of Chennai , Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, including its diagonals, popularly called the Golden Quadrilateral has got saturated at most of the locations. Given the present growth scenario, the Railways expect to carry 95 million tonnes incremental traffic per year and about 1'100 million tonnes rev– enue earning freight traffic by the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Urban Infrastructure Urban infrastructure consists of drinking water, sanitation, sewage systems, electricity and gas distribution, urban transport, primary health services and environmental regulation. The process of urbanization has gathered considerable momentum in recent years and this has put urban infrastructure and services under severe strain is one of the key elements of urban infrastructure. The major objective of urban transport initiative is to provide efficient and affordable publ ic transport. A National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) has been formulated with the objective of ensuring easily accessible, safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable and sustainable mobility for all. Courtesy: The Economic Times, October 13, 2011, New Delhi 36