GUWAHATI, Dec 13 ? With an objective to pave way for private investment in infrastructure sector in this region the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFi) has signed an MoU with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (ILFS). Governor of Assam Lt Gen (retd) Ajai Singh attended the MoU signing ceremony between the NEDFi and ILFS which is expected to revolutionise development of infrastructure sectors like power, roads, telecom, water supply, sewerage, industrial estates etc in this investment-deficient region through ?private public partnership? mechanism.
Top officials of the NEDFi including the CMD, J P Saikia, ILFS vice-chairman Ravi Parthasarathy, CEO Pradeep Singh and senior officials of Government of Assam were present on the occasion. In the absence of lack of investment from private sector in infrastructure development in the region, the NEDFi has looked upto the country?s leading infrastructure development ILFS so that funds cease to be constraint for the sector in the region.
The ILFS vice-chairman Ravi Parthasarathy said, ? The partnership with the NEDFi will step up the inflow of substantial private capital to the region to supplement government investments for infrastructure, tourism and industrial development in a spirit of Public Private Partnership.?
In the initial phase the two institutions propose to focus on the power sector and the rehabilitation and strengthening of industrial estates in the region. Both the NEDFi and the ILFS are going to identify projects and request help from the State governments of the region in formulating mechanism for infrastructure projects so that private capitals can be encouraged in the public utilities.
In the event of NEDFi-ILFS venture get going, the Northeastern region would no longer have to depend alone on Central government funding for building infrastructure. The ILFS operates in such a manner that the infrastructure built by the company floated by it through private funding would become the property of the respective government after a period of time when the money invested would be repaid by the government after mobilising it from the public benefited from the facility. The ILFS is credited with building the Mumbai-Pune Highway East Coast Road in Chennai, South Delhi-Noida toll bridge, Tirupur water supply projects etc.