Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated Online Dashboard for the National Infrastructure Pipeline!
Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman who is the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs launched the NIP i.e. National Infrastructure Pipeline Online Dashboard through video conferencing today.
The online dashboard is predicted to be a one-stop destination for all stakeholders looking for information that is related to infrastructure projects in the New India. IIG i.e. India Investment Grid will be hosting the dashboard (www.indiainvestmentgrid.gov.in). India Investment Grid is believed to be a dynamic and interactive online platform that portrays the updated & real-time investment opportunities that are available in the nation.
The launching event was enriched by the presence of the members of the High-Level Task Force on Infrastructure and Secretaries of different government departments and ministries.
While the Finance Minister was addressing the people about the dashboard, she said, “NIP will provide a boost to the vision of an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat. The availability of NIP projects on IIG will ensure easy accessibility to updated project information and attract investors for PPP projects. This is a great step in the direction of implementing NIP- giving a fillip to infrastructure development in the country”.
India Investment Grid said to be an interactive and dynamic online platform where the best investment opportunities in the country are showcased to the global investor community. The National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency which is managed and even developed Invest India, India Investment Grid serves as the gateway to investments in the country and it is also widely used by Indian embassies and missions all across the globe. These are the following things IIG allows the investors to do:
- Searching a pan-India database for investment opportunities across various sectors
- Tracking the progress of preferred projects and indication of interest
- Direct communication with the project promoters
Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman while giving the budget speech of 2019-2020, announced an outlay of Rupees one hundred lakh crore i.e. 1.41 trillion US dollars for infrastructure projects for the upcoming five years. After the budget announcement by the Finance Minister, Hon’ble Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi gave an Independence Day speech, wherein he emphasized that “For the development of modern infrastructure, a number of Rupees one hundred lakh crore (i.e. 1.41 trillion US dollars) has been earmarked for this period which will create new job opportunities besides improving the living standards”.
After all of this, a high-level Task Force submitted a final report on the National Infrastructure Pipeline with projected infrastructure investment of Rupees One hundred and eleven lakh crore i.e. 1.57 trillion US dollars during FY 2020-25.
National Infrastructure Pipeline is a first-of-its-kind initiative to provide world-class infrastructure across the nation and offer improvement in the quality of life for every citizen. Project preparation will be improved by the NIP, and it will also attract investments (both domestic & foreign) into infrastructure and will be important for achieving the target of becoming a 5 trillion US dollar economy by FY 2025. Both social and economic infrastructure projects will be covered by NIP and that will be based on the updated Harmonized Master List of Infrastructure.
Projects worth Rupees forty-four lakh crore i.e. 624.20 billion US dollars which are 40% of the total expected capital expenditure of Rupees One hundred and eleven lakh crore i.e. 1.57 trillion US dollar are under implementation, projects worth Rupees Thirty-three lakh crore i.e. 468.15 billion US dollars which are 30% is at a conceptual stage, projects that are worth Rupees twenty-two lakh crore i.e. 312.10 billion US dollars which are 20% are under development (project identified and DPR prepared, but still left to draw-down funds) and the balance projects that are worth Rupees eleven lakh crore i.e. 156.05 billion US dollars that concludes 10% are unclassified. Now, the India Investment Grid will be hosting the entire gamut of projects for providing visibility to the National Infrastructure Pipeline and become an attraction point for investments from international & domestic investors.
In order to provide access to updated project-level information for investments all across the infrastructural sectors, the NIP project database is made available on IIG, under Volume III of the Final Report of the NIP Task Force. The Digital platform will be providing greater visibility to projects and will help to attain the mandate of the National Infrastructure Pipeline to market the projects in an efficient manner. The India Investment Grid hosted NIP project database will be providing visibility to the NIP and help in financing with prospective investors; international and domestic, capable to access updated project-level details. That is not just it, it is also an evaluation and monitoring tool to be used by the concerned departments/ministries and DEA will be monitoring the implementation and real progress vis-à-vis initial estimates of the NIP for every project.
It has been asked by the Finance Minister that all the concerned departments/ministries should immediately update the status of projects on the National Infrastructure Pipeline portal and must keep it updated in real-time. She also asked all the concerned departments and ministries to present concrete progress in terms of project and reform implementation.
