CPSE assets sale to bring about paradigm shift in infra: FM Sitharaman

Asset monetisation should be viewed as an overall strategy for bringing about a paradigm shift in infrastructure augmentation and maintenance and not just as a funding mechanism, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said during the national workshop with states on asset monetisation Tuesday.

“Materialising India’s vision of a $5 trillion economy, while striking the right balance between fiscal imperatives and socio-economic welfare, can only be achieved through active collaboration between public and private sector,” she said at the virtual workshop organised by Niti Aayog and Department of Economic Affairs.

The workshop elaborated on the strategic context of core and non-core asset monetisation, along with detailed discussions on the need for and modality of such monetisation by public sector entities, and the experiences of public and private sector entities in the space.


It also discussed the various benefits and pre-requisites of leveraging private sector participation for monetisation.

“Our vision for infrastructure is ultimately of, for and by our states. Without whose collaboration, holistic development of infrastructure is neither feasible nor impactful,” she said at the workshop, which was attended by 300 participants including respective state and union territories administrators and secretaries for transport, power, public works and other departments.

The FM underlined government's resolve for value creation and improvement in productivity of brownfield infrastructure assets via innovative instruments, while adding that asset monetisation was based on principle of value creation for government and investors.

Macquaire India, KKR and IndiGrid also attended the workshop where they shared investors’ perspectives on selection and investment in brownfield assets.

The finance minister added that investment planned under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) was critical for boosting growth in states and various initiatives in this year’s Union Budget would facilitate funding for infrastructure creation under the NIP.

She also called for a proactive and collaborative approach by the central and state agencies for achieving the objectives of the National Monetization Pipeline.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant highlighted the strategic need for monetisation and the various modalities therein. He emphasised that the partnership between central and state agencies is imperative for leveraging the enormous resource efficiencies of the private sector and for recycling public funds for new infrastructure creation.