SME Times News Bureau | 04 Sep, 2015
Union Minister Jayant Sinha said on Thursday that the government plans to employ enormous financial resources to hasten infrastructure development in railways and highways for boosting economic growth.
According to the Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Sinha, government is "very focused" on infrastructure creation and will invest up to Rs.8.5 lakh crore in the Indian Railways alone.
"After a decade of under investment... We have decided to invest Rs.8.5 lakh crore in the Indian railways. This is will change the face of railways in India," Sinha said at an industry event organised by the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA).
He said that a very high priority needs to be given to investment including investment in Infrastructure to achieve G20's collective growth objective.
"This should be done through taking policy measures to improve business environment, mobilization of resources of multilateral banks and their technical expertise, facilitation of long term financing from institutional investors and use of new financial models to promote infrastructure as an asset class," the minister added.
The minister also emphasized the need for improving the quality of public investment processes including PPP models to attract further investment which will act as a boost for growth of the economy and create the jobs we need.
In the discussions on the global economy, Sinha expressed his concern over the unconventional monetary policies adopted by a number of advanced economies and have emphasized the need for having an effective mechanism to deal with negative spillovers that may arise due to these policies or due to unexpected and disorderly withdrawal of these policies in future.