The overall investment scenario continues to be slack even though there are indications of sectoral divergence in investment trends.

The total outstanding investment has been adversely impacted by the tardy implementation of power projects and the resultant drag on the aggregate investment envisaged.

The 34th survey of investment projects for the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has pegged the total outstanding investment in 7,838 projects under various stages of implementation at Rs 14,91,881 crore (Rs 14,918.81 billion) as of July 2003.

This indicates a drop of 2.61 per cent compared with the investment recorded a year ago. However, the fall is largely due to several delayed and long-standing power projects being put under review. They are not considered in the outstanding investment.

Excluding the power sector, the overall outstanding on a year-on-year basis gained by four per cent, with the outstanding investment surging by 9.5 per cent in the manufacturing sector and by four per cent in the infrastructure sector.

Within manufacturing, metals attracted a higher investment, with outstanding investment advancing from Rs 45,197 crore (Rs 451.97 billion) in July 2002 to Rs 58,352 crore (Rs 583.52 billion) by July 2003.

Likewise, after a gap of few years, the automobile sector displayed a healthy growth of 30 per cent. Food and beverages, cotton textiles, petroleum products also witnessed an appreciable increase in investment.

The outstanding investment in the computer software sector, which had substantial inflows in the past few years, saw a slow down in the year to July 2003.

Compared to the handsome year-on-year growth of 215 per cent, 98 per cent, 34 per cent in the three years since July 2000, investment in the sector inched up by a paltry 2.2 per cent in July 2003 compared to the year-ago levels.

The rapid growth in investment in telecommunications sector witnessed since 1999 has not kept pace last year. The sector saw investments drop to Rs 85,477 crore (Rs 854.77 billion) by July 2003 from Rs 1,04,351 crore a year ago due to lack of fresh investments and downward revision of project costs.

The largest outstanding investment continued to be concentrated in the power sector. With a Rs 4,39,632 crore (Rs 4,396.32 billion) aggregate investment, the sector accounted for 30 per cent of the total outstanding investment in the country.

However, over the last one year, outstanding investment in this sector has dwindled owing to various projects being put under review.

Investment shrank by 15 per cent over the one year ending July 2003 as projects worth Rs 1,20,215 crore (Rs 1,202.15 billion) were stalled as against new projects worth Rs 32,273 crore (Rs 322.73 billion) coming in as fresh investment.

The total outstanding investments in projects under implementation dropped to Rs 6,55,220 crore (Rs 6,552.20 billion) from Rs 6,83,572 crore (Rs 6,835.72 billion) in July 2002.

In the manufacturing sector, the rate of implementation has slipped to 37 per cent from 44 per cent a year ago with most of the fresh investment announced during the last one year still at proposed stage.

On the other hand, infrastructure/ services sector has witnessed a robust uptrend in implementation to 47 per cent from 44 per cent in July 2002 on the back of mainly road and telecom projects.