The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, JULY 21, 2022
The Industries Department of the Odisha Government and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group on Thursday signed an MoU to support in implementation of the Asset Monetization & Recyling Program (AMRP) for the state.
This program is a part of a wider World Bank Group Technical Assistance to support the state in monetizing existing public sector assets and enhance the state’s economic growth. The Program will facilitate and accelerate the monetization process in the state by unlocking the value from large scale public investment in the brownfield infrastructure assets and bringing in private sector efficiencies.
IFC will support the state in screening and developing a prioritized list of monetizable brownfield stateowned assets for select sectors that can be further screened to identify and define bankable pilot projects that may be taken to market for attracting private sector investments that can eventually be used for demonstrating the benefits of brownfield-asset monetization and upgrading state’s infrastructure facilities.
Globally, developing countries have been adopting various forms of Asset Monetization and Asset Recycling approach to generate funds for their economies. India’s infrastructure development pipeline has an estimated funding requirement of $1.5 trillion until 2025.
To address this issue and to boost the economy, the Government of India (Gol) rolled out the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP). States are also looking at this opportunity and projects in power transmission, energy generation (including renewable energy and large hydro storage projects), highways and transport related land infrastructure assets, warehousing etc. are on the list of pilot projects.
“With the impact of economic shocks limiting fiscal space in many countries, the need for innovation to fund the infrastructure gap, particularly through crowding in private investments, is all the more crucial.” said IFC’s India Country Head, Wendy Werner.
“India has a huge potential to monetize its brownfield infrastructure assets and upgrading it to international standards for meeting the demands of a growing urban population. On this account, IFC is pleased to offer its global expertise in attracting private finance for infrastructure and deep understanding of PPPs to the Government of Odisha.” she added.
“We are pleased to partner with IFC in identifying assets that can be leveraged for attracting more private sector investments in the state. This will help us bridge some of the financing gap improving and upgrading state’s infrastructure” said, Odisha Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra.
“The Government of India’s Union Budget 2021-22 identified ‘Monetization of Public Assets’ as one of its core strategies for enhanced and sustainable infrastructure financing. Under the “Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure” the Central Government is providing incentive to the States in the form of SO-year interest free loan of equivalent amount of value of assets monetized. Hence, the asset monetization program would create a new source of finances and mechanism to fund development of core infrastructure projects”. added Pradeep Jena, Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary, P&C Department.
“Industries Department is the Nodal Department for this program and we would reach out the each and every department to identify monetizable assets and with help of the World Bank Group, we shall assist in structuring the projects and making it ready for transaction.” added Hemant Sharma, Principal Secretary, Industries Department.
Bhupendra Singh Poonia, MD IPICOL & Additional Secretary, Industries Department on behalf of the State Government and from IFC Roshika Singh, Senior Country Officer signed the MoU in presence of Chief Secretary and other senior State Government Officials.
