Budget 2021: Boost of 34 per cent in Infrastructure Capex

The Finance Minister announced a sharp increase in the capital expenditure of nearly 34.5 per cent to Rs 5.54 lakh crore for FY 2022 as against Rs 4.39 lakh crore. Out of the total, Rs 44,000 crore will be given to the Department of Economic Affairs and more than Rs 2 lakh crore to the states & autonomous bodies.  

The Finance Minister also proposed National Monetisation Pipeline for the brownfield projects. NHAI and PGCIL have sponsored one infrastructure investment trust each. Besides, five operational roads with an enterprise value of Rs 5,000 crore is transferred to NHAI whereas, transmission assets worth Rs 7,000 crore is transferred to PGCIL.  

National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) is a first-of-its-kind, a whole-of-government exercise to provide world-class infrastructure, which was launched with 6,835 projects has been expanded to 7,400 projects.    

The Finance Minister announced the creation of Development Financial Institution (DFI) to finance infrastructure and allocated Rs 20,000 crore in this year’s Budget. DFI aims to have a lending portfolio of Rs 5 lakh crore over a period of 3 years.   

On the roads & highways’ front, the government has set aside Rs 5.54 lakh core. It announced highway projects in four poll-bound states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam & Kerala.   

Reacting to the news, at 12.25 pm, infrastructure stocks such as L&T rose to 2.46 per cent, KNR Constructions Ltd jumped 5.77 per cent, NCC Ltd increased 7.05 per cent, Ashoka Buildcon increased 6.58 per cent on BSE.