Foreign funds plan share in India’s infrastructure corpus

Sovereign and pension funds from Russia, Singapore, the U.K. and the UAE are among those to express interest in the Rs. 40,000-crore National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

The government will invest Rs. 20,000 crore in the Fund that will build greenfield and brownfield projects and revive stalled projects. The remaining Rs. 20,000 crore is expected to come from private investors. The government’s share in the corpus will not exceed 49 per cent. The Governing Council of the Fund has decided to complete by January-end the selection process of the Chief Executive of the investment management company responsible for taking investment decisions of its corpus, Mr. Jaitley said.

Review in March

Mr. Jaitley, who is the chairman of the Council, said it will meet again in March to review the progress in the participation of the sovereign funds that are willing to invest. The Council also took up possible projects that may be taken up under the Fund, he said. The registration process, under regulations of the Fund, has been completed, including the process that includes markets regulator, SEBI, as a Category II Alternative Investment Fund.

India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd has been appointed as the investment advisor and IDBI Capital Market Services Ltd as Advisor to NIIF Trustee Ltd initially for six months and one year respectively, according to a government statement.

In October, the Finance Ministry constituted a search-cum-selection Committee under the Economic Affairs Secretary, Shaktikanta Das, for selecting a CEO for the Investment Management Company. The decision followed the Cabinet’s approval in July for the creation of the fund with the purpose of development of infrastructure projects.