Report deadline: 31 Oct 2019

India needs to spend about US$1.4 trillion (Rs.100 lakh crore) over five years on infrastructure, the Finance Ministry said on 7 Sept 2019.

For this, a Task Force under the chairmanship of Secretary of Department of Economic Affairs has been constituted by Finance Minister to draw up a National Infrastructure Pipeline for each of the years from FY 2019-20 to FY 2024-25.

In pursuance of this, an annual infrastructure pipeline would be developed.

In the past decade (FY 2008-17), India invested about US$1.1 trillion on infrastructure.

The challenge is to step-up annual infrastructure investment so that lack of infrastructure does not become a binding constraint on the growth of the Indian economy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech highlighted that Rs.100 lakh crore would be invested on infrastructure over the next five years.

Infrastructure projects will include social and economic infrastructure projects. To implement an infrastructure program of this scale, it is important that projects are adequately prepared and launched.

The Terms of Reference of the Task Force are as follows:

To identify technically feasible and financially and economically viable infrastructure projects that can be initiated in FY 2019-20.

To list the projects that can be included in the pipeline for each of the remaining 5 years between FY 2021-25.

To estimate annual infrastructure investment and capital costs.

To guide the Ministries in identifying appropriate sources of financing.

To suggest measures to monitor the projects so that cost and time overrun is minimized.

The National Infrastructure Pipeline would include greenfield and brownfield projects costing above Rs.100 crore each.

Other qualifications for inclusion in the pipeline for the current year will include availability of a DPR, feasibility of implementation, inclusion in the financing plan and readiness and availability of administrative sanction.

Each Ministry and Department would be responsible for monitoring of projects so as to ensure their timely and within-cost implementation.

The Task Force will also enable robust marketing of the pipeline of projects requiring private investment through the India Investment Grid (IIG), National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), etc.

The Task Force will submit its Report on the pipeline for FY 2019-20 by 31 October 2019 and on the indicative pipeline for FY 2021-25 by 31 December 2019. Fiinews.com