Panel to select National Investment Infrastructure Fund CEO

The government has formed a search-cum-selection committee headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das to select a chief executive for the investment management company under the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), a statement said on Thursday.

"The investment management company would actually be responsible for taking investment decision of the NIIF corpus. The government's share in the corpus shall not exceed 49 percent," the finance ministry statement said.

"The salaries of the investment team would be market linked. The salary of the chief executive officer of the company would be market linked and he would be expected to achieve ambitious performance goals with rigorous management output," it added.

Other members of the selection committee include Department of Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Rathin Roy and Rajiv Kumar, the ministry said.

The union cabinet had, in July, approved the creation of a Rs.20,000 crore National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) to give boost to infrastructure projects, including those which are stalled.

Its initial authorised capital would be Rs.20,000 crore, which will be raised from time as decided by the finance ministry.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had proposed creation of infrastructure fund in his budget 2015-16.

The government would contribute 49 percent of the subscribed capital of NIIF, and with this contribution it aims to attract investment from overseas sovereign/quasi-sovereign, multilateral/bilateral investors.

Last month, India invited the UAE to participate in the NIIF in order to give a push to infrastructure projects in India.