The government is finally preparing to launch its first IDF this year, albeit with a $3 billion corpus open to domestic investors alone. Vishal Shah and Smit Sheth hail IDF as a good beginning, but contend that the definition of infrastructure needs to be sharpened.
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Not enough credit enhancements
While in theory, the idea behind setting up IDFs is sound, the two structures proposed by the Ministry of Finance at present do not appear to have enough credit enhancement mechanisms to bring in domestic and foreign long term institutional investors, says Amit Dinakar.
Banks should be nodal agencies to IDF
S Vishvanathan, MD and CEO, SBI Capital Markets, explains why the regulators of IDF have taken a rather cautious approach in developing it, and suggests that banks can take on the initial risk and then pass it on to IDFs-thus retaining the asset throughout the project.
Given banks' experience, it'd be advantageous for them to launch IDFs
How will banks respond to the IDF allowance by the government? BK Batra, Executive Director, IDBI Bank, explains that this well thought-out scheme nevertheless needs to be tweaked to be fully productive.
Private investments rising
Private sector's role in infrastructure is poised for significant growth in the 12th Five Year Plan, possibly accounting for about 35-40 per cent of projected investment of $1 trillion, said JP Nayak, President, Larsen & Toubro.
PPP panel clears 5 projects
A high-level committee to approve public private partnership (PPP) projects cleared five infrastructure sector projects envisaging total investment of about Rs 7,000 crore.
Analysis: Leveraging real estate for metro systems
City planners in India seem to be looking at metro rail as the panacea to poor and myopic planning and haphazard growth. Sudheendra Bajpai and Aparajita Dutt say integration of systems should include planning the city"s real estate around metro rail.
Given our policies, we are lucky to get investors in India
Problems exist at both policy and execution levels in infrastructure sectors, making the country a high-risk investment destination as policymakers have lost out on India’s big advantage as an investment destination, Nasser Munjee, Chairman, Development Credit Bank Ltd
PM calls for transparency in awarding projects
In the wake of irregularities in allocation of natural resources and award of infrastructure projects, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for transparency in awarding highway projects to eliminate the possibility of favouritism or ‘crony capitalism'.
Banks' alternative to infra lending: Good step, but…
Finally, banks can get completely rid of their limits imposed by asset-liability mismatch (ALM). Although schemes like take out financing exist and there have been numerous attempts to revive the corporate bond market, most of the schemes and efforts seem to have gone in vain.