Rs 102 Lakh Cr of Infra Projects Announced for Next Five Years: Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed a press conference in Delhi and unveiled Rs 102 lakh crore of infrastructure projects that will be implemented in the next five years as part of the government's spending push in the infrastructure sector.

The Finance Minister said the Rs. 102 lakh crore National Infrastructure Projects will help make India a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025.

Speaking at the National Media Centre, she said that 70 different stakeholder consultations were held over a short period of four months for the task-force to identify the same.

"In line with announcement made by PM in his Independence Day 2019 speech, to make infrastructure investment worth Rs. 100 lakh crore for the next five years, a task force was formed to identify projects," she explained.

Sitharaman said that the task force had come up with recommendations for investment in Rs. 102 lakh crores worth of projects. This involves 21 Ministries and 18 States and Union Territories.

The Finance Minister added that projects were still coming in, and that she expected the government to reach another 3 lakh crore worth of projects.

This infrastructure investment, in keeping with the current government's objectives, will focus on departments including Power, Rail, Urban, Irrigation, Mobility, Education, Health, Water and Digital, she explained.

The Finance Minister added that in the last six years, a total of 51 lakh crores has been spent on infrastructure. This number, which amounts to about 5-6% of the GDP, she said, includes both the Centre and States. Now, she said, we are committing to an investment of 100 lakh crores.

She announced the government's plan to launch a national infrastructure pipeline (NIP) Coordination Mechanism -- a first of its kind.

"National Infrastructure Pipeline Coordination Mechanism to be launched, comprising the Centre, states and private sector, for detailed planning, information dissemination and monitoring implementation of the NIP framework," she said.

"This makes the job of monitoring and linking with developers easier," she added.

The Finance Minister also said that an annual global investors meet will be organised in the second half of 2020.

It is estimated that India would need to spend $4.5 trillion on infrastructure by 2030 to sustain its growth rate, the PIB quoted on Twitter. The NIP is expected to make this happen efficiently.