Preparing for an infrastructure push

The NIP Task Force has asked for a 21 per cent increase in government spend on infrastructure in 2020-21

In releasing the report of the Task Force on the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) for 2019-25 at a press conference on the last day of 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman sent out two important messages. One, she made it clear that she had no problem in meeting the media just about a month before presenting the Union Budget for 2020-21. Two, given the state of the economy, she saw no reason to delay any further in letting the nation know what a group of senior government officials had recommended to revive investment in the infrastructure sector.

Finance ministers and the finance