Column : Lipstick on a pig
Much of this, however, seems to be missing the wood for the trees. Going by the finance ministry’s statements, India has around R1.3 lakh crore of projects that are stuck due to some clearance not coming through. So now that the CCI has come through, the argument goes, these projects will soon get cleared. It’s true that many banks don’t have the headroom to lend much more to infrastructure projects, but that has been resolved by pushing through the concept of Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF)—so once SBI, say, sells its loans in, say DIAL, to IDFC’s IDF, this will create more space for SBI to be able to lend again. That’s the logic: wherever there are obvious gaps/problems, a diligent government is finding solutions.
That’s obviously the way to go, but it’s important to keep in mind this may be barking up the wrong tree. For one, getting banks to hawk their better-performing infrastructure loans to IDFs may actually make their books look shakier.
Two, consider a new telco that bids R12,000
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