Infra debt fund guidelines by June: FinMin

The Finance Ministry said on Monday the guidelines for infrastructure debt funds will be announced by June to help the core sector meet its financing requirement, which has been pegged at $1 trillion during the 12th Plan period (2012-17).

"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)

to meet the financial needs of the sector.

Answering queries on the government's proposal to expand the list of industries that will qualify for infrastructure sector-related benefits, Gopalan added, "We are going to Committee of Secretaries for the infrastructure definition."

He further said a final decision will be taken after getting their views.

The country's poor infrastructure, which is seen a major bottleneck for economic growth, requires an investment of a whopping $1 trillion in the 12th Plan, beginning 2012 and ending 2017.

Currently, power, road, ports and industrial parks are among some of the segments that have been included in the infrastructure sector.

Retail, real estate and health are the major sectors that are demanding an infrastructure tag.