Accroding to PIB, Task Force on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) submitted its Final Report on NIP for FY 2019-25 to the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 29 April 2020. FM Sitharaman had announced a five-year Rs. 100 lakh crore infrastructure investment in her budget speech 2019-20. NIP is aimed at improving project preparation, attracting investments (both domestic and foreign) into infrastructure. It is considered to be crucial for target of becoming a $5 trillion economy by FY2025. NIP was also featured in FY2021 budget.
The final report of NIP Task Force is projecting total infrastructure investment of Rs 111 lakh crore during the period FY 2020-25 in light of additional/amended data provided by Central Ministries/State Governments since the release of summary NIP Report. Out of the total expected capital expenditure of Rs. 111 lakh crore, projects worth Rs 44 lakh crore (40% of NIP) are under implementation, projects worth Rs 33 lakh crore (30%) are at conceptual stage and projects worth Rs 22 lakh crore (20%) are under development Information regarding project stage are unavailable for projects worth Rs 11 lakh crore (10%).
Sectors such as energy (24%), roads (18%), urban (17%) and railways (12%) account for around 71% of the projected infrastructure investments in India. The Centre (39%) and States (40%) are expected to have almost equal share in implementing the NIP in India, followed by the private sector (21%).
The report identifies and highlights a set of reforms to scale up and propel infrastructure investments. It also suggests ways and means of financing the NIP through deepening corporate bond markets, including those of municipal bonds, setting up Development Financial Institutions for infrastructure sector, accelerating monetisation of infrastructure assets, land monetisation, etc.
The task force has recommended that three Committees to be setup: (i) Committee to monitor NIP progress and eliminate delays; (ii) a Steering Committee in each Infrastructure ministry level for following up implementation; and (iii) a Steering Committee in DEA for raising financial resources for the NIP. The NIP project database would be hosted on India Investment Grid (IIG).
For NIP, a bottom-up approach was adopted wherein all projects (greenfield or brownfield, under implementation or under conceptualisation) costing greater than Rs 100 crore per project were included.
