Government to step up Funding for National Infrastructure Pipeline
While presenting the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that in order to achieve the target of National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) in the coming years the Government proposes following three steps:
- Creation of institutional structures
- A big thrust on monetizing assets
- Enhancing the share of capital expenditure in Central and State budgets
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NIP launched in December 2019 with 6835 projects has now expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs. 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure Ministries have been completed.
A sum of Rs. 20,000 crore has been provisioned in the Union Budget to capitalise Development Financial Institution (DFI). A Bill will be introduced to set up DFI which will act as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing.
To enable Debt Financing of InVITs and REITs by Foreign Portfolio Investors suitable amendments will be done in the relevant legislations.
The Union Finance Minister announced launch of a “National Monetization Pipeline” of potential brownfield infrastructure assets stating that Monetizing operating public infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new infrastructure construction.
The Minister informed that an Asset Monetization dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors.