Why does it take the Prime Minister to get his hands dirty each time there is an operational problem in infrastructure? We hope this was one of the many questions Dr Manmohan Singh asked himself before taking on his favourite role—as Finance Minister.
FlashNews:
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LIC, IL&FS propose $2 bn infra fund
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) plans to hold 10 per cent stake in the proposed $2 billion infrastructure debt fund (IDF) that it would set up in coordination with IL&FS.
ICICI with BoB, Citi to set up first IDF
ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and Citi Financial have joiÂned hands to form a nonbanking financial company (NBFC) in order to float the country’s first infrastructure development fund (IDF).While ICICI Bank and BoB will pick up 30 percent stake each, Citi Financial will have close to 30 percent.
Advisory is a step towards combining all infra-related services under one roof
Banks lending to the infrastructure sector are feeling the need for specialised project appraisal and advisory capabilities.SBI and IDFC have spun them off as separate entities that can backward integrate into their financing competency. IIFCL’s recently launched projects company goes beyond individual projects, and is starting with trying to capture the goodwill of states and state owned entities.
Energy: Raise sectoral limits
We hope the Budget will attempt to address the issue of improving the flow of funds by revising the sectoral lending limits of banks, including the power sector in any take–out scheme floated by the government,
Infrascape 2012 | Finance: Brewing strain on debt servicing
For us the most active and fruitful sectors in 2011 were road and power sector. These sectors comÂprise a majority of our portÂfolio. I understand that even in case of commercial banks these two sectors form the majority of their infrastruÂcture loan book,
RBI eases IDF norms for NRIs
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to allow eligible non-resident investors to invest, on a repatriation basis, in rupee and foreign currency denominated bonds issued by the Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDFs) set up as non-banking financial companies.
Infra Debt Funds: Creating new wealth
IDFs come as a new solution to debt finance to long-term, high-value infrastructure sectors. Eligibility norms for IDFs are rather stringent but justified given the risks and quantums-typical of infrastructure investment-involved.
A new opportunity to participate in Indian infrastructure
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.
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.

