India to discuss investment fund idea with Temasek

Transport Minister Kamal Nath said he would meet with Temasek Holdings Pte to discuss the “idea” of setting up a fund to invest in roads, ports and airports as the country seeked to improve infrastructure.

Nath said he would meet with the Singapore state- owned investment company on Wednesday, when asked about a Wall Street Journal report yesterday that India was in talks about creating a $2-billion fund. Jeffrey Fang, a spokesman for Temasek, declined to comment.

India made the proposal in an October meeting with Temasek Chief Executive Officer Ho Ching, Nath told reporters in Singapore on Wednesday. India had said in May it planned to set up Rs 50,000-crore ($11 billion) debt fund to upgrade infrastructure and fuel economic growth.

India is seeking to attract foreign capital after a $5-billion fund planned in 2007 with Citigroup Inc and Blackstone Group LP was shelved. The country got as much as $3 billion from overseas investors in roads in the past year, Nath said on Wednesday.

The nation was meeting its target of building 20 kilometers (12 miles) of roads and highways every day, Nath said.

Roads, used for transporting 65 percent of India’s freight, were plagued by single lanes and irregular surfaces that slow trucks to an average speed of about 20 kilometers per hour, according to a 2009 study by the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and Transport Corporation of India.