Behind the IL&FS crisis: India hasn't a clue how to pay for infrastructure

The infrastructure projects worth building are those that pay for themselves in the long run

When one of India’s largest shadow bankers -- an institution with 169 subsidiaries that calls itself Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services -- admitted to a series of defaults last week, Indian markets came close to a crisis. Fearing that a prolonged investment slowdown would intensify, the government invoked a little-known clause in India’s Companies Act and appointed a new board. The rot the defaults revealed is about more than one organization, however, or even this particular moment in the Indian economy’s fragile recovery. Behind the messy descent of IL&FS from a gilt-edged, quasi-sovereign debt issuer to the object of a