Finance Minister Sitharaman unveils infrastructure projects worth Rs102 lakh crore

To push the government's spending in the infrastructure sector, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, December 31, 2019, unveiled Rs102 lakh crore infrastructure projects. These projects will be implemented in the next five years. The Rs102 lakh crore National Infrastructure Projects will help the government to meet its aim of turning India into a $5 trillion economy by 2025.

While announcing the projects and its scale, the finance minister also released the Report of the Task Force on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) for 2019-2025. She also said the Prime Minister in his Independence Day-2019 speech highlighted that Rs100 lakh crore would be invested on infrastructure over the next five years including social and economic infrastructure projects.

Subsequently, a task force was constituted to draw up the NIP for identified projects for each year from Financial Year (FY) 2019-20 to 2024-25, who identified Rs102 lakh crore projects after conducting consultations with 70 stakeholders in four months. The projects identified are in sectors including Energy (24%), Roads (19%), Urban (16%), and Railways (13%).

She further said another projects worth Rs3 lakh core are likely to be added to this pipeline. She said nearly Rs25 lakh crore energy projects have been lined up and another Rs20 lakh crore in the road and about Rs14 lakh crore railway projects have also been lined up.

The detailed sector-wise break of the pipeline is as follows: