India in process of setting up a national bank for funding infrastructure investments: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India has committed budgetary resources for resilient infrastructure and it is in the process of setting up a national bank for funding infrastructure investments. She was speaking at a virtual session organised by the Coalition of Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) in New Delhi.

Ministry of Finance in a tweet on Friday said, "Finance Minister Smt. @nsitharaman participated in a virtual session organised by the Coalition of Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) in New Delhi today."

Ms Sitharaman cited three concrete steps taken by India in building infrastructure. They are creating institutional structures, big thrust on monetising assets and enhancing the share of capital expenditure in central and state budgets. She said, India announced National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) in December 2019 and is the first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government exercise ever undertaken by the Government.

She said the government has also adopted a two-pronged strategy including the International Solar Alliance which is aimed at the global agenda of climate change mitigation. She also lauded the CDRI and partners across member organisations for organising the International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure 2021 and said that India supports international collaboration on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

The session was attended by Ambassador of Japan Mr. Satoshi Suzuki @EOJinIndia, High Commissioner of the UK Mr. Alex Ellis @AlexWEllis, Ambassador of European Union, Mr. Ugo Astuto @EUAmbIndia and Administrator of USAID Ms. Gloria Steele.