Kerala Infrastructure Investment Bond bills worth Rs 10,000 crore this fiscal

Kochi: The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Bond (KIFFB), the state’s flagship programme to overcome the perennial problem of lack of resources it faces, will require Rs 10,000 crore in the 2019-20 financial year for settling various bills connected with the works awarded under it.

According to the Budget speech finance minister T.M. Thomas Isaac made on Thursday, in the current fiscal, projects worth Rs 30,000 crore will be functional.

He said KIFFB had sanctioned various projects worth Rs 41,326 crore, which includes 64 per  cent of the projects announced in 2016-17 and 74 per cent of projects in 2017-18.  According to the minister, 48.6 per cent of projects that received the administrative sanction has already been tendered, with 79 per cent of them entering into contracts.

The minister is also banking on KIFFB for over Rs 15,000 crore required for land acquisition for various industrial projects.

He stated that the KIFFB had enabled the state to achieve the goal of making possible the infrastructure development by giving a small portion of the future income as a grant to KIIFB annually.

“KIIFB is only securitising, today, the future cash flow akin to LSGIs availing loan in Life Mission. There are several advantages to this.,” he said.

“The first one is, without waiting for 20-25 years, essential infrastructure facilities can be created today itself. Second is, we can guess the cost escalation of construction if it is carried out after ten or 20 years. The rate of interest for the loan availed today is meagre when compared to this cost escalation,” he said.