India may not be in the middle of sweeping reform, but its infrastructure story is writing its own headlines. Crisil Ratings projects a 30% rise in infrastructure investment to â‚ą17.5 trillion over two years, driven by a surge in private capital targeting energy, transmission, roads, and high-tech industrial parks. Over a third of upcoming renewable projects will be hybrids with storage, and thermal power is making a comeback with 30 GW in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the National Highway Authority is scaling up road monetization, laying out plans to raise more funds through listed infrastructure trusts and asset bundling to attract institutional investors.
What's striking isn't just the scale—but the composition. Energy remains the magnet, but the new wave also includes semiconductor fabs, warehouses, data centers, and even discussions around nuclear. “The sizzle,” as one infrastructure expert put it, lies in the buildout of hospitals, hotels, schools, and tech clusters rising in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Add to that a 700-km expressway and the world's tallest railway bridge in a single month, and India's patchwork of past investments is now feeding a broader industrial ecosystem, not just transport corridors.
And yet, this comes as Prime Minister Modi's third term kicks off with a policy lull. Major reforms like land, labor, or privatization appear off the table for now, with only one significant reform initiated in the past year, per CSIS data. Instead, policy momentum could shift toward lower-profile efforts—deregulation, tax simplification, and employment incentives—which may still improve India's business climate in subtle ways. But with looming state elections through 2027 and a politically sensitive census ahead, the real action for investors may continue to unfold in cement, copper, and concrete—well before it does in Parliament.
