FinMin sets up task force to identify infra projects for `100 lakh crore investment
New Delhi: The government on Saturday said it had constituted a high-level task force to identify infrastructure projects for Rs 100 lakh crore investment by 2024-25 as India aims to become a USD 5 trillion economy.
The task force, headed by the economic affairs secretary, will draw up a 'National Infrastructure Pipeline' of Rs 100 lakh crore, the finance ministry said in a statement.
This would include greenfield and brownfield projects costing above Rs 100 crore each.
The task force will comprise secretaries from different ministries, other senior officials and Niti Aayog CEO. It will identify technically feasible and financially/ economically viable infrastructure projects that can be initiated in 2019-20.
Further, it has been asked to list the projects that can be included in the pipeline for each of the remaining five years between fiscals 2021-25.
The task force, constituted by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will submit its report on the pipeline for 2019-20 by October 31, 2019, and on the indicative pipeline for 2021-25 by December-end, the ministry said.
To achieve the target of scaling India's GDP to USD 5 trillion by 2024-25, the country needs to spend about USD 1.4 trillion (Rs 100 lakh crore) from the fiscal 2019-20 to 2024-25 on infrastructure, it added.
In the past decade (fiscal 2008-17), India invested about USD 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, the ministry said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech had said that Rs 100 lakh crore would be invested in infrastructure over the next five years. These 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 ministry said, adding that in pursuance of this an annual infrastructure pipeline would be developed.
"To achieve this task, a Task Force under the chairmanship of Secretary (DEA) has been constituted by Union Finance Minister to draw up a National Infrastructure Pipeline for each of the years from FY 2019-20 to FY 2024-25," it said.( With PTI inputs)
