Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday launched the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), unveiling projects worth Rs 102-trillion, to boost economic growth and help the economy achieve the $5-trillion target by 2024-25.
The pipeline has identified projects across 23 sectors and 18 states and union territories, which will be funded over the next five years by the central and state governments as well as the private sector.
Addressing a press conference while launching the NIP report, Sitharaman said 39 per cent of the projects would be implemented by the Centre and states each, and the rest 22 per cent by the private sector.
Sitharaman said the government was expecting the private sector’s share to go up to 30 per cent by 2024-25 and added that some additional Rs 3 trillion worth of projects would be identified in the coming weeks, taking the total commitment up to Rs 105 trillion.
The pipeline includes brownfield and greenfield projects by the Centre, states, private sector, state-owned companies as well as those under the public-private partnership model. According to the data given in the report, some Rs 42.7 trillion (43 per cent) worth of projects are under implementation, Rs 32.7 trillion (about 33 per cent) worth of projects are at the conceptualisation stage, and Rs 19.1 trillion (about 19 per cent) worth of projects are under development.
The pipeline follows a commitment by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that more than Rs 100 trillion would be invested in infrastructure over the next five years in his Independence speech earlier this year, and also in the Union Budget before that.
Following that a task force led by Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty identified the Rs 102 trillion worth of projects after conducting 70 stakeholder consultations in a short period of four months, Sitharaman said.
The first meeting of the Task Force was held in September 2019.
Source: Business Standard
