"We are hoping to get it (guideline for infra debt fund) out by the end of first quarter, by June this year," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan told reporters on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry event.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in the Budget, announced facilitating the establishment of dedicated infra debt funds through special purpose vehicles for attracting foreign investment in the infrastructure sector.
"To attract foreign funds for financing of infrastructure, I propose to create special vehicles in the form of notified infrastructure debt funds," Mukherjee had said while presenting the Budget for 2011-12.
According to the Budget Memorandum, the government is aiming at the creation of more than one such debt fund, which will provide low-cost funds from abroad for financing growth of the infrastructure sector.
In June, 2010, an expert panel headed by HDFC chief Deepak Parekh had recommended setting up such a fund with an initial corpus of Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion)