The Finance Ministry on Thursday said that it was looking at two routes for the proposed infrastructure debt facility. The scheme for the infrastructure debt fund would be so framed without upsetting the existing regulations, a top Ministry official said.
“A lot of preparatory work has already gone into it. We are looking at two routes — one is the bond route through the debt fund and the other is units through the capital market,” Mr R. Gopalan, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry, said at an Assocham summit on capital market here.
In Budget 2011-12, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, had announced that the Government would facilitate the establishment of dedicated infrastructure debt funds through special purpose vehicles for attracting foreign investment in the infrastructure sector.
The idea is to facilitate creation of more than one infrastructure debt fund. This could be created in the private sector. The setting up of infrastructure debt funds could help meet the financing needs (estimated at over $1 trillion) for infrastructure development during the 12th plan period of 2012-17. As much as 50 per cent of the $1 trillion requirement is expected to be met from the private sector.
The Finance Ministry had earlier indicated that it would come up with guidelines for the infrastructure debt fund by June-end. “Perhaps, in the next few months, we would be able to achieve what we intend to do,” Mr Gopalan said today.