Bloomberg/Mumbai

Cyrus Mistry, chairman of India’s Tata group, is planning to spend at least $8bn on building roads, airports and housing, betting a stable administration after India’s coming elections will lead to a new wave of infrastructure development.

Mistry, 45, who took over as the group’s chairman in December 2012 after Ratan Tata’s two decades at the helm, is expanding at least three unlisted infrastructure companies within the $100bn conglomerate, according to two people familiar with his plans. The businesses will get more attention after Mistry has overhauled operations at bigger, listed Tata companies including the auto and steel units.

The initiative from Tata, which control assets including Jaguar Land Rover and New York’s Pierre hotel, underscores the hope among Indian corporates that infrastructure project approvals and spending will pick up when a new government is formed after elections ending in mid-May.

“Mistry looks at this sector as a phenomenal opportunity,” said U R Bhat, managing director of the India unit of UK-based Dalton Strategic Partnership LLP, which manages $2bn globally. “It’s a natural extension of their capabilities. Tata has the financial muscle to bid for the biggest of the projects and dominate,” he said.

India needs to spend $2.2tn by 2030 on urban transportation, housing and office space to boost infrastructure ranked below that of Guatemala and Namibia by the World Economic Forum, McKinsey & Co said in a 2010 study.

From 2012 through 2017, India is likely to spend Rs41tn ($668bn) on infrastructure with almost half of it being provided by the private sector, Siddhartha Roy, Tata Group’s chief economic adviser, told reporters in June.

Tata Housing Development, Tata Projects and Tata Realty and Infrastructure or TRIL, which builds information technology parks, malls and residential complexes, are among the infrastructure units that are aiming to more than triple their order books to Rs700bn in five years, said Sarika Kapoor Chokshi, a Tata Sons spokeswoman in Mumbai.

TRIL plans to spend Rs227bn in the next five years building highways, airports, hotels and urban transportation, according to a presentation made by managing director Sanjay Ubale last June. Tata Housing is developing 26 projects across 10 Indian states.

Mistry also is encouraging the units to seek contracts abroad, in particular in western Asia and southern and western Africa, according to one of the people familiar. Tata management expects infrastructure activity will expand in a year or two after a new Indian government spurs an economic rebound, the person said. India’s growth slowed to 4.7% in the final three months of 2013, idling below 5% for the seventh consecutive quarter and denting the Congress party’s chances of extending its decade-long rule in national elections that start next month and conclude in mid-May.

Narendra Modi of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party will have the best chance of leading the next government, polls indicate. Modi has run on his record of stronger-than-average growth in the western Indian state of Gujarat, which he has led since 2001.

“Developers are either not investing in or exiting highways projects citing the government’s inability to provide the required clearances in time,” analysts at India Ratings and Research, the local unit of Fitch Ratings, said in a March 11 report. “Following the completion of upcoming parliamentary elections, the sector is likely to gain renewed attention from policy makers,” they said.