Infrastructure

Rajasthan has achieved significant progress in improving its social infrastructure over the years reflected in the 9th rank as per the Human Development Index.

Population of over 56 million (Census 2001) makes it the eighth largest state by population. Its population density at 165 persons per sq km is the lowest among the large states in the country. The population growth rate in Rajasthan stood at 28 per cent during 1991-2001, which is higher than the national growth rate of 21.3 per cent during the same period. The urban population in Rajasthan stood at 132 million, representing over 23 per cent of the total.

Education

The state has 41 engineering colleges with an annual intake of over 11,500 students. It also has 23 polytechnics and 152 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), providing vocational training to students. The LN Mittal Foundation (belonging to the Ispat International group) has recently established the LNM Indian Institute of Information Technology at Jaipur to impart technical education in the fields of IT, communication, electronics and emerging technologies. This network of educational institutes makes available a pool of qualified professionals to the businesses and industries located in Rajasthan.

A total of seven medical institutes in Rajasthan offer over 700 seats annually for pursuing medical degrees. In addition, 28 pharmacy institutes with annual intake of 1,600 students are functioning in Rajasthan. The state also has 26 management institutes, with an annual intake of 1,460 students.

The network of health facilities in the state comprises 120 hospitals and 1,800 health centres. The number of in-patient beds in Rajasthan's hospitals is 39,000.

The total length of roads in Rajasthan stands at over 140,000 km. The length of surfaced roads in the state has increased from 65,000 km in 1993 to over 89,000 km by 1999.

Rajasthan's road density stands at 41.2 km per 100 square km, as against the national average of 76.8.This is mainly due to a large proportion of desert area in the state.

The total length of national highways passing through the state is 4,597 km. This includes the highway connecting Delhi and Mumbai, India's two main business and commercial centres. Under the on-going National Highway Development Programme (NHDP), a length of 1,280 km is being converted into 4-6 lane highways. Of this, over 300 km has already been up-graded.

Rajasthan has benefitted significantly from the on­going highway development programme which involves developing of a high-quality highway corridor linking Delhi and Mumbai, the two most prominent business centres in the country.

The state has also been a pioneer in promoting private investment in development of highways, with implementation of projects on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis. Till date, the state has completed ten BOT projects aggregating 150 km with investment of over US$ 25 million. Further 11 projects with investment of over US$ 10 million are under implementation. Prominent private investors in BOT road projects in Rajasthan include GVK Group and Transport Corporation of India.

The total length of railway network in the state is 5,894 km. Of this, almost 500 km is electrified track. At present, a large proportion of the existing railway network is based on metre gauge. Indian Railways is implementing a major track modernisation programme to convert existing metre gauge routes to broad gauge. With the completion of this programme, the broad gauge network will account for over 55 per cent of the total railway network. At present, projects aggregating 450 km are under implementation. In addition, Indian Railways is also implementing three projects for new railway lines aggregating 250 km.

To overcome the lack of a seaport in the state, Rajasthan is planning a "dry port" at Alwar. The project, expected to cost around US$ 40 million, shall be implemented through Public Private Partnership.

Recently, the state has announced plans for upgrading the state highways linking the already upgraded national highways, with an investment of over US$ 200 million.

Rajasthan has full fledged airports at Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur, the three prominent commercial and business centres and key tourist destinations. In addition, air strips / helipads exist at a number of locations. The number of passengers handled at Jaipur and Udaipur airports was 419,169 in 2003-04, as against 366,833 in 2001-02. Jaipur airport was awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification for its quality management systems in 2003.

@Annualised
Source: Airports Authority of India

Rajasthan is implementing the Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project (RUIDP) with assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). RUIDP covers the six largest cities (Ajmer, Bikaner, Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur), which are also the most important commercial and business centres of the state. The combined population of these six cities is over 5.3 million, representing 40 per cent of the total urban population of the state. The US$ 362 million RUIDP is aimed at improving urban infrastructure and strengthening public services delivery systems in these cities. Services to be covered by the project include water and sewerage, urban transport and solid waste management.

Power

Source: Government of Rajasthan

The consumption of electricity increased from 7,990 million units to over 14,200 million units in 2001-02, thus indicating an average annual growth rate of over 7 per cent. Agriculture and industry represent the largest consumer categories, followed by domestic consumers.

On a per capita basis, electricity consumption in Rajasthan stands at 334 kWh per annum, lower than the national average of 355 kWh per annum.

The following projects are in various stages of implementation, aggregating 975 MW capacity.

The number of fixed wire telephone subscribers in the state has grown from 0.4 million in 1995 to 1.6 million in 2002.

The growth in cellular mobile telephony has been equally strong. Since its launch in 1999, the number of subscribers has increased to over 770,000 in 2004.

Rajasthan has a network of almost 300 industrial estates developed by RIICO. These are spread across the state, with many of them focused exclusively on high growth industries such as gems & jewellery, apparels, agro-processing and bio- technology.

These estates provide good quality infrastructure support to units locating there, including uninterrupted electricity and water supply, sewerage and common roads.

Jaipur

Jaipur has 19 industrial areas with product base including gems & jewellery, marble, granite and engineering items. It is also a potential destination for IT and ITES industries coming to the state.

Kota

Kota has 14 industrial estates and a number of large chemical units. Products from these units include fertilizers, caustic soda, cement, copper based items, stones & tiles, PVC items and tyre chord fabric. The areas surrounding Kota also have large limestone and sandstone deposits.