NEW DELHI: The new development finance institution (DFI) proposed in the Budget 2021 may be merged with the India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL), which is currently run by the Government of India. DFI has been launched to push the projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline.
Debashish Panda, Secretary, Financial Services, said that the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) is to play the role of an anchor for the national infrastructure pipeline. At a post-budget interaction, he said that the government may consider IIFCL for a quick start in the programme because the organisation already has some domain expertise and manpower who are already trained and experienced in the same field, provided it could be subsumed in the new financial institution.
Nirmala Sitharaman, Finanace Minister of India, will introduce a bill in the near future to set up DFI and has provided a sum of Rs 20,000 crore to capitalize the institution in the latest budget. According to Panda, the proposed DFI will play a key role in development along with financing the projects. The aim of the Ministry of Finance is to have a lending portfolio of at least Rs 5 lakh crores for DFI in three years’ time.