India: FM pushes for speedy asset monetisation

• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 9 Mar 21 chaired a “workshop” with top bureaucrats of various infrastructure ministries and states, and stressed the importance of asset monetisation as a “critical financing option for enhancing infrastructural spending”.
• The workshop, organised by the Niti Aayog, came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set an ambitious asset monetisation target of INR2.5tr for the next three years.
• The latest workshop is expected to expedite the process. Given the faltering tax collection in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has been pinning hopes on gathering non-tax revenues to be able to boost spending, especially in infrastructure, and bring the Covid-ravaged economy back on its feet fast. It has already identified about 7,000 projects National Infrastructure Pipeline, envisaging a massive investment requirement of INR111tr over FY20-FY25.
• “The workshop elaborated on the strategic context of core and non-core asset monetisation, along with detailed discussions on the need for and modality of such monetisation by public sector entities, and the experiences of public and private sector entities in the space,” according to an official statement.
• Niti Aayog chief executive Amitabh Kant highlighted the need for closer partnership between central and state agencies for “leveraging the enormous resource efficiencies of the private sector and for recycling public funds for new infrastructure creation”.
• Top officials of various state-run entities also attended the workshop.

External Link : https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/fm-pushes-for-speedy-asset-monetisation/2209512/