Rs. 102 lakh crore to be invested for infrastructure projects: FM

New Delhi, Dec 31 (HS): Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced government’s plan to invest Rs. 102 lakh crores in infrastructure projects across the country.
While addressing a press conference here today she said that the government’s plan was based on the findings of a task force that was constituted by the government in line with the announcement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech in which he had spoken of investing Rs.100 lakh crore in Infrastructure projects.
While mentioning about the performance of the NDA government as the year ends today, the Finance Minister said the task force identified Rs 102 lakh crore infrastructure projects after conducting 70 stakeholder consultations in a very short span of four months.
The Minister further said that the government was also set to launch a National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) Coordination Mechanism, comprising the three viz. Centre, states and private sector, for detailed planning, information dissemination and monitoring implementation of its framework.
She said that the task force, headed by the Economic Affairs Secretary, would draw up a ‘National Infrastructure Pipeline’ of Rs 100 lakh crore which was expected to come up by 2024-25. Besides, Rs 3 lakh crores of projects are likely to be added to this pipeline, she adds.
She also said that these projects were on top of Rs 51 lakh crore which was spent by the Centre and the states during the last six years. Sitharaman said the new pipeline consists of 39 per cent projects each by the Centre and states and the balance by 22 per cent by private sector. These projects are identified in power, railways, urban irrigation, mobility, education and health sector.