Infra authority for PPP projects soon

The Karnataka government which aims to undertake massive infrastructure projects across the state, plans to set up an independent statutory body to fast track various projects in a time-bound manner. The new body, which will be headed by the chief secretary, will have powers to approve all mega infrastructure projects under the public private partnership (PPP) model, a top government official said.

“The proposed ‘Karnataka Infrastructure Authority’ will have the highest powers to review and approve all PPP projects on public need and ‘Value for Money’ basis. The authority has been proposed under the new Infrastructure Bill. We have already held two rounds of industry and inter-ministerial consultation to fine tune the bill. The legislature department has also cleared the bill which will be tabled in the coming assembly session,” Rajkumar Khatri, Secretary, Infrastructure Development Department (IDD), said.

The proposed infrastructure bill will go to the cabinet for final approval very soon, he said. The IDD has identified 189 infrastructure projects across eight key sectors like transportation & logistics, agri infrastructure, education, energy, health, industrial infrastructure, tourism and, urban and municipal infrastructure that will require an estimated investment of Rs 2,00,657 crore, he said.