India's home minister has admitted that half of the government's budget to build much-needed new roads never reaches its intended target in what he described as the country's "biggest swindle". P. Chidambaram, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, told the NDTV news channel that infrastructure development money was more vulnerable to corruption and wastage than programmes to help the poor.
"Laying roads: this is the biggest swindle in the country," he said in remarks broadcast on Monday. "No more than 50 percent of the contracted amount is actually spent on the roads." India's economy has grown rapidly in the last 15 years, but its infrastructure remains notoriously creaky. The transport ministry, until recently headed by minister Kamal Nath, had set an ambitious goal of building 35,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) of highways by March 2014 at a rate of 20 kilometres a day.