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Since 2005-06, there has been an unmistakable boom in investment. Two indicators tell the story. The saving rate and the investment rate in 2003-04 were 29.8 per cent and 28.2 per cent, respectively. According to estimates made by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, they will be 35.6 per cent and 36.3 per cent, respectively, by the end of 2007-08.

The trend is reflected on the foreign investment side too. During the period April-December 2007-08, foreign direct investment amounted to $12.7 billion and foreign institutional investment to $18 billion. Our policy is to encourage all sources of investment, domestic and foreign, private and public.

In 2008-09, Government will provide Rs 16,436 crore as equity support and Rs 3,003 crore as loans to Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs). 44 CPSEs are listed today.

The Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) is the main instrument to channelise bank funds for financing rural infrastructure, and it is quite popular among State Governments. Therefore, I propose to raise the corpus of RIDF-XIV in 2008-09 to Rs 14,000 crore. I also propose to operate a separate window under RIDF-XIV for rural roads with a corpus of Rs 4,000 crore.

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