Govt to establish infrastructure fund

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed the setting up of a National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) with an initial corpus of Rs 20,000 crore that can be leveraged by infrastructure companies. ´I intend to establish a National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) for ensuring an annual flow of Rs 20,000 crore to it. This will enable the trust to raise debt and, in turn, invest as equity in infrastructure finance companies,´ Jaitley said during presenting the Budget.
According to the Finance Minister, the infrastructure finance companies can leverage extra equity from the funds and use it to erect infrastructure. He proposed permitting tax-free infrastructure bonds for projects in the rail, road and irrigation sectors. He called for a revised PPP model.