India needs to set up National Investment and Infrastructure Fund

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): The Indian industry needs to discover better approaches to support infrastructure projects as banks battling with bad loans would not have the option to fund them, said Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at an industry gathering arranged by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Monday. As indicated by assessments of NITI Aayog, the nation would require around USD4.5 trillion for interest in the framework by 2030. "Banks can't support Infrastructure project’s funding, the industry needs to discover new ways. On financing options for infrastructure, we are just recovering from the consequences of excessive exposure of banks to infrastructure projects,” Das said. “Non-performing assets relating to infrastructure lending by banks have remained at elevated levels. There is clearly a need for diversifying financing options,” he added.

Investment in Infrastructure-

RBI Governor emphasized on the setting up of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and said that it was a significant strategic policy response in finding better approaches to finance infrastructure projects. He has also put forth a new North-South, East-West expressways, and rail lines alongside and suggested the government to stop cross subsiding electricity and should adopt direct benefit transfer schemes.

In the case of the golden quadrilateral, a major push to certain focused on mega infrastructure undertakings can reignite the economy. And this could begin in the form of a north-south and east-west expressway together with high-speed rail corridors, both of which would generate large forward and backward linkages for several other sectors of the economy and regions around the rail/road networks.

Both public and private investment would be the main focus point for financing our infrastructure investments, Das added.

Physical Infrastructure in past years-

Das contended that India has advanced altogether in making of physical infrastructure over the most recent couple of years, which he bolstered by a few insights. Road development has expanded from 17 km for each day in 2015-16 to near around 29 km for each day over the most recent two years. India is the third biggest domestic market for civil aviation on the planet with 142 air terminals. On-air terminal network, India positioned fourth among 141 nations in the Global Competitiveness Report, 2019 of the World Economic Forum. In the field of telecommunication, the overall teledensity by the end of February 2020 was 87.7% while there is a rapid increase in the growth of internet and broadband penetration in India.