Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled the National Infrastructure Pipeline for projects worth Rs 102 lakh crore that will be implemented in the next five years as part of the government’s spending push in the infrastructure sector.
The minister said, “In line with announcement made by PM in his Independence Day 2019 speech, to make infrastructure investment worth Rs. 100 lakh crore for the next five years, a task force was formed to identify projects.”
The identified projects are mainly in the fields of power, railways, urban irrigation, mobility, education and health, the minister informed.
While addressing the media here in New Delhi, the minister said with the help of huge sum of investments, the government was able to keep Prime Minister’s promise made during his Independence Day speech. “We are looking at various suggestions given by various working groups under the task force,” said Sitharaman.
The NIP is aimed to achieve India’s target of $5 trillion economy by 2025.
“Rs 102 lakh crore National Infrastructure Projects (NIP) will help make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025. Infrastructure is a focus area for the government. This is the first time that we will have an infra pipeline. The task force has submitted its report in just 4 months,” she added.
Sitharaman said while the task force has already identified Rs 102 lakh crore worth of projects, another 3 lakh crore worth of projects will be added in the coming few weeks.
The finance ministry informed that the centre’s share will be 39%, states share 39% of the NIP investments. The private sector will get around 22 percent of the NIP mechanism, which will be increased to 30% by 2025.
While concluding the conference, the finance minister announced that an Annual Global Investor meeting will be organized in the second half of 2020.
(With input from agencies)