16. Infrastructure Financing in India: At the Crossroads

The spectrum of financing infrastructure in India ranged from complete budgetary support to extensive fund raising in the private space including frantic effort to internationalize the funding Channels. The necessary regulatory changes for varied sources and varied instruments used have culminated over the years in a dynamic construct of funding avenues. The infrastructure engagement over the past years have yielded valuable lessons about project design and appraisal, poverty focus, private sector participation, environmental and social sustainability, the issue of corruption and stakeholders communication apart from supportive funding sources. The experiment of new sources of funding has some extent succeeded in certain cases and some has also floundered to meet the specific needs of the infrastructure. However, it is high time to strengthen the sources where considerable success has been achieved and reappraise the risk and potent deterrent/road blocks where the result has somewhat not up to the expected level. In short, the infrastructure funding space currently looks hazy and badly in need of a relook, if all the announced policy goals have the slender chance of meeting with success in days to come.