Financial consortium to plough Rs 3,000 crore for infrastructure

Bangalore, Oct 13 (UNI) A consortium of 15 banks and financial institutions, led by IL and FS, have executed agreements committing Rs 3,000 crore to supplement Karnataka Government funding to Municipal Corporations and other urban local bodies.

Called the Pooled Municipal Debt Obligation (PMDO) Facility, the innovative agreement had other banks, including IDBI and Canara Bank, besides the newly incorporated India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL).

The facility had been structured to ensure that municipal corporations could access these funds under a common governance framework. This would ensure that municipal corporations accessing funds under the facility could do so in an efficient, transparent, streamlined and single window basis. More importantly, the PMDO enabled the municipal corporations to service these funds in a seamless manner, an IL and FS release said today.

The facility would part finance a wide range of civic infrastructure assets as part of an overall plan of the municipal corporations as approved under the JNNURM or other schemes of the Centre. The facility would be managed by IL and FS, which would also work with municipal corporations to ensure that projects were appropriately prepared, tendered and implemented on an integrated basis, the release said.

The PMDO was a first of its kind initiative by banks and financial institutions to address the requirements or urban infrastructure supplementing budgetary resources, besides enhancing the capacity of implementing agencies to undertake a range of projects to cost, time and standards.

UNI VK GD DKA HT1830