As per Economic Survey, 7768 hectares (73%) of the 10,703 hectares of total landrequired for the corridors has been acquired, and the entire land acquisition process is expected to be completed by the end of 2013. Recent press statements have suggested 86% of the total land has been acquired, and for contracts that will be awarded this year, 98% of the land has been acquired A brief snapshot of the same till March 2012 is given in Figure 19

The DFC project (eastern and western) is expected to involve a project cost of over INR950bn and to be funded by a combination of: (a) debt from bilateral/multilateral agencies, (b) equity from Ministry of Railways, and (c) public-private partnership.

The funding for the DFC is structured so that the entire equity will be funded by Indian Railways from the budgetary support of the government to Indian Railways. The debt funds, to the tune of 73%, will be financed by JICA (Japanese International Corporation Agency) for the western corridor and World Bank for a large portion of the eastern corridor.

In addition, the government from time to time has ensured that adequate equity funding is made available for the corridor project. As late as in the budget speech of 2013-14, the Finance Minister indicated, “the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project has made rapid progress….In order to dispel any doubt about funding, I wish to make it clear that we shall provide, if required, additional funds during 2013-14 within the share of the Government of India in the overall outlay for the project”. To ensure that the committed liabilities for debt servicing of JICA and World Bank loans are taken for the DFC projects, the government has also decided to create a corpus by setting up a debt service fund. In FY14, the government announced an allocation of INR41.63bn to the fund for repaying the loan taken from these agencies.

Eoin Treacy's view s.

My view – India's greatest strengths lie in the ingenuity of its entrepreneurs and size of its domestic consumer base relative to GDP. Some of its greatest challenges have been in eliminating bottlenecks in bureaucracy, infrastructure, logistics, agriculture and retailing. It is therefore heartening that movement has been seen in all these areas over the last year despite ambivalence towards the market on behalf of some international investors.

Infrastructure is where India's greatest potential for positive news lies, not least because it is coming from such a low base. At a talk I gave for the CFA Institute in San Francisco last year I spoke about patterns of development and sought to contrast the grid system evident in so many US cities with the more ad hoc, privately- led growth that characterised London's evolution during the Industrial revolution. The PowerPoint for this talk can be found in the Presentations section.

An example of this difference is that New York has Grand Central Station and Penn Station. London has Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Marylebone, Paddington, Waterloo and London Bridge stations. While all of these are hubs in their own right, none is a central train station. Part of the reason for this is that the original development of rail infrastructure was privately led.

China has quite clearly focused on the grid system and central planning. India's infrastructure development has been more sporadic. Private companies have tended to build infrastructure to their own requirements while the New Delhi – Mumbai industrial corridor is a relatively new phenomenon. The important consideration in my view is that while the US and UK followed quite different paths to development, they both succeeded in raising the living standards of the vast majority of their citizens. China and India are likely to do the same over the next decades.

Many investors have been disappointed with the pace of India's infrastructure development. I've met more than a few people who have given up on India ever delivering world class infrastructure. However, if that situation were to change, it would represent a powerful catalyst for improving investor perceptions as barriers to growth are lowered.

Within the infrastructure sector, I have highlighted the performance of cement companies as a bellwether. (Also see Comment of the Day on April 26th).

Ultratech Cement, Ambuja Cement and Associated Cements all pulled back today and will need to find support above their respective April lows if the benefit of the doubt is to continue to be given to the medium-term upside.

Larsen & Toubro has held a volatile uptrend since early 2012 and found support near INR1,325 in April. The benefit of the doubt can be given to continued higher to lateral ranging, provided it holds above that low on the next pullback.

If India is about to embark on unprecedented infrastructure development companies such as these should benefit. A further deterioration in their trend consistency would question the hypothesis.