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the literacy rate of 74% is still lower than the universal standard and the country suffers from a high dropout rate. Further, there exist cruel disparities in literacy rates and educational opportunities between urban and rural areas, males and females, and among different social groups.

INDIAN ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Development of the infrastructure sectors is a critical requirement for a sustainable growth of the economy. Investments into these sectors have accounted for a most important share of public spending for most of the last fifty years. Sufficient, cost-effective and quality infrastructure is crucial for economic growth and development. It also affects international competitiveness and flow of direct international investments. The current economic reforms, thus, attach a high priority to the better use of existing infrastructure assets and fresh development also, in order that existing bottlenecks do not slow up the general economic growth and export dynamism.

The duty of creating infrastructure services has been, until recently, given to the public sector, which has been beset by various problems. To achieve better efficiency and accountability in these sectors, the government has introduced structural reforms to support private contribution and competition in infrastructure services. These reform actions have triggered huge opportunities for private investment in this sector.

The following sectors come under the purview of infrastructure:

Electricity (which would also include generation, transmission and distribution) and R&M of power stations.

Non conventional energy (including wind energy and solar energy).

Water supply and sanitation (including solid waste management, drainage and sewerage) and street lightning.

Telecommunications.

Road & bridges.

Ports.

Inland waterways.

Airports.

Railways.

Irrigation.

Storage.

Oil and gas pipeline networks.

Urban Infrastructure:

It has been found globally and in India too, urban development is key to economic wealth. The development of the service sector has further covered the need for a capable urban infrastructure. The fast urbanization and the increasing force on major cities from the migrant population, has put undue pressure on urban infrastructure resulting in shortage in inadequate water supply and sewerage, poverty, housing ,traffic overcrowding, pollution, and social conflict. Today managing urban infrastructure is a major challenge for urban planner.

Rural Infrastructure:

India lives in its villages. Development of rural infrastructure is equally very important, than urban infrastructure. Well-organized rural infrastructure is a key not only for rural economic progress, but also to ease the living standards of rural poor. Some of the constraints for rural infrastructure development are poor financial health of the state governments, lacking rural development projects and the incompletion of many authorized projects. In order to tackle the problem, the government started the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) in 1995-96 with an initial authorized amount of Rs 2000 cores with inputs from both the public and pr