Govt working on Infrastructure Trust Fund: Mayaram

India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd has launched its first infrastructure debt fund with targeted initial corpus of $1 billion

With a view to accelarte flow of long-term funds in infrastructure projects, the finance ministry is looking to put in place a new structure called Infrastructure Trust Fund, much in line with Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a top official said today.

"We are at the moment also working on a new structure called Infrastructure Trust Fund. Infrastructure Trust Fund are in the nature of REIT , which are prevalent in many countries like Singapore, Hongkong and USA," Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary Arvind Mayaram said at an event organised by an industry body.

"Under the new structure, underlying revenue of project will be tranferred to a trust and the trust will then issue units to investors, including foreign investors who then want to buy the units," Mayaram added.

He expressed confidence that the finance ministry will be able to come out with this innovative scheme for financing of infrastructure in the next two years.

Mayaram further noted that the government has made several efforts to deepen the financing markets.

Recently, India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL) has launched its first infrastructure debt fund (IDF) with targeted initial corpus of $1 billion.

The IDF, which was proposed in the Union Budget for 2011-12 fiscal, is aimed at accelerating and enhancing flow of long term debt for funding the ambitious programme of infrastructure development in the country.

The requirement of infrastructure fund in the 12th Plan (2012-17) has been pegged at $1 trillion.