NIIF CEO will be appointed in few weeks: Sinha

The Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of India's first Rs 40,000-crore sovereign wealth fund NIIF (National Investment and Infrastructure Fund) will be appointed in next few weeks, Finance Ministry said today.
Despite a tight fiscal deficit target of 3.5 per cent India has stepped up public expenditure for next fiscal, Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha said at the Advancing Asia conference here.
"We have in fact received 82 very high quality CVs (for the post of NIIF CEO). We have shortlisted down to about 8-10 people. We will be shortly calling them for interview and we hope to whole process complete within next few weeks," Sinha said.

He further said while formulating the 2016-17 Budget, the Finance Ministry had to first prioritise infrastructure sectors as irrigation, roads and railways in order to allocate funds in Budget.
Also, the government has ensured innovative financing approaches by bringing in NIIF, allowing companies to issue Masala Bonds and also taking steps to deepen the bond market.
The government is also taking steps to de-clog and get the 1,300 PPP projects moving.

The government in December had set up the Rs 40,000-crore NIIF, which is an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled projects.
Finance Ministry in October had constituted a search-cum-selection Committee under the Chairmanship of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das for selecting a CEO for the Investment Management Company under the NIIF.

The ministry had signed MoU with Abu Dhabi and Russian nano technology company and is also having discussions with some funds with the UK for investments in NIIF.
While government will invest Rs 20,000 crore in NIIF, the remaining amount will come from private investors.