NEW DELHI: Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre’s plan of a massive increase its investment with the target of Rs 111 lakh crore under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) between FY20 and FY25 is likely to see severe near-term headwinds.
Rating agency ICRA on Friday estimated that against the total infrastructure investment of Rs 36 lakh crore envisaged in the first two years of NIP (FY20-FY21), the actual investment is likely to range between Rs 24-27 lakh crore.
“In the current environment, the infrastructure investment in FY2021 would fall short of the plan, and consequently to achieve the NIP target a significant step-up of investments will be required in the later part of the plan,” Shubham Jain, Senior Vice-President and Group-Head, Corporate Ratings, ICRA said.
According to Jain, "To achieve the targeted investments in the remaining four years (FY22-FY25), an average annual investment of over Rs 21 lakh crore will be required.”
While even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the NIP was already quite ambitious and challenging, but it seemed achievable with a significant push towards infrastructure.
As per the ICRA note, the Covid-19 has now made it a daunting task to achieve the target.