Finance Ministry receives 70 applications for NIIF CEO post

NEW DELHI: Finance Ministry has received over 70 application for the post of chief executive of India's maiden sovereign wealth fund.

"We are in the process of selecting CEO of NIIF. The CEO will be drawn from the market... We have received 70 applications," Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said today.

The government in December had set up the Rs 40,000 crore National Investment and Infrastructure fund (NIIF), which is an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled projects.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the India Investment Summit, Das said the government has already identified 5-6 infrastructure projects in railways and highways sector.

He, however, did not give the investment envisaged in these projects.

Finance Ministry in October had constituted a search-cum-selection Committee under the Chairmanship of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das for selecting a CEO for the Investment Management Company under the NIIF.

The Investment Management Company would be responsible for taking investment decision of NIIF corpus. The government's share in the corpus shall not exceed 49 per cent.

While the government will invest Rs 20,000 crore in NIIF, another similar amount will come from private investors.

Several foreign funds from US, UK, Canada, the UAE today participated in the summit in which Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled the logo of NIIF.