How to make the DFI model work
Infra woes The long gestation period skews asset-liability flows - Bloomberg×
A professional company staffed with personnel with superior project finance and credit appraisal skills is the need of the hour
In her recent Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to revive development financial institution (DFI) model to act as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing.
The government provided ₹20,000 crore to capitalise the DFI to meet its ambitious loan target of ₹5-lakh crore within three years. After the transformation of the erstwhile DFIs Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) into universal banks, there was a vacuum in the DFI space, in general, and infrastructure financing, in particular.
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Ever since the finance minister (FM) announced in her budget speech that the government will privatise a couple of banks and a general insurance company in the coming financial year, speculation has been rife about the possible candidates for disinvestment. There has been another major announcement, that of raising the limit for foreign direct investment (FDI) in insurance to 74% which will, indeed, have a far-reaching impact on the insurance landscape in India. The rise in FDI cap merits a separate assessment; this article attempts to examine the likelihood of success of the privatisation effort.
What is not clear from the announcement is the reason for taking this step. Is it merely to meet the Budget deficit, or is this the outcome of a paradigm shift that the government has no business to be in business? Or the decision to privatise is driven by the government’s inability or unwillingness to keep pumping more and more capital in government-owned general insurance comp
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The pandemic continues to shake up the world, with several countries remaining in lock-down. Even in India, where there is a dramatic fall of the COVID-19 cases tending to zero deaths, we see its ugly head rising in quite a few parts Kerala, Karnataka, and Maharashtra and thousands of dogs died due to the virus hitting them in West Bengal. No one knows the end of it. The vaccines are moving fast and over 10 million of people received the first dose and half of them, the second dose too. The risks of the pandemic have spread to all sectors and the financial sector is the worst affected. It could have been minimised in the financial sector, had there been a risk culture in the system.
Necessary action is taken in each such case, says Minister
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has faced ₹1,163.14 crore defaults in its investments, the Labour and Employment Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
To a question by CPI MP Elamaram Kareem, Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said the EPFO had made “investments in various bonds and other instruments following the pattern of investments notified by the government of India that have so far been beneficial to it”.
However, he said the securities belonging to the Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (₹760.69 crore), Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (₹106.23 crore), Reliance Capital Limited (₹292.64 crore), Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (₹2.98 crore) and Punjab Financial Corporation (₹60 lakh) “have resulted in default of certain principal amounts and interest due”.
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A strip of nails is placed at the heavily barricaded Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, Ghazipur during the ongoing farmer protests on February 3, 2021. | Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA
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“We are sure that the government is inquiring into it. We saw a statement by the Prime Minister in the media that law will take its course. We don’t want to interfere at this stage,” Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde told a PIL petitioner.