On April 29, 2020, the task force on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) chaired by economic affairs secretary Atanu Chakraborty submitted its Final Report on NIP for FY 2019-25 to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, projecting total infrastructure investment of Rs 111 lakh crore during a 5-year span of FY 2019-20 to FY 2024-25.
- The report highlighted policy deficits and challenges in India’s infrastructure sector and recommended reforms to scale up investment in the sector.
Recommendations by NIP task force:
–Investment: For NIP projects, the Centre would invest 39% of the projected expenditure while states’ share would be 40%, followed by private sector with 21%.
–Sector-wise infra: Sectors such as energy (24%), roads (18%), urban (17%) and railways (12%) amount to around 71% of the projected infrastructure investments in India.
–Division of Outlay: The report has divided the outlay in 3 volumes-projects worth Rs 44 lakh crore are under implementation while projects amounting to Rs 33 lakh crore are in the planning stage, and projects worth Rs 22 lakh crore are being developed. Information regarding the project stage is unavailable for projects worth Rs 11 lakh crore (10%).
–Setting up of 3 committees: The Task Force has recommended that three Committees be set up viz.
- Committee to monitor NIP progress and eliminate delays;
- Steering Committee in each Infrastructure ministry level for following up implementation; and
- Steering Committee in Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) for raising financial resources for the NIP.
–Higher Level Committee: It also highlighted the need for a higher level committee that could monitor the reforms and deal with the issue of stalled projects.
-The task force also recommended deepening the corporate bond market including municipal bonds.
- The NIP project database would be hosted on India Investment Grid (IIG) shortly to provide visibility to the NIP and help in its financing with prospective investors, domestic and foreign, able to access updated project-level information.
- The basic elements of the monitoring and evaluation framework including recommended governance escalation matrix is given in Volume-I of the NIP report.
What is NIP?
NIP is a first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government exercise to provide world-class infrastructure across the country, and improve the quality of life for all citizens. It aims to improve project preparation, attract investments (both domestic and foreign) into infrastructure. It will play a major role in India in becoming a $5 trillion economy by FY 2025.
- In 2019 Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi had announced a target to invest Rs 100 lakh crore in India’s social and economic infrastructure sector over five years.
