An IDFC release said that the board of directors of IDFC--which approved the financial results for the company for the year 1998-99 at a meeting held in Mumbai on Tuesday--has not recommended any dividend payment in this initial year of operations.

"IDFC's cumulative approvals and disbursements (funded and non-funded commitments) for the year 1998-99 were Rs 2,577 crore and Rs 724 crore, respectively. During this period, the finance company provided assistance to 13 projects in power, roads and the telecom sectors," the company release said.

IDFC's total income has also shown a 134.25 per cent growth, touching Rs 231 crore for the year 1998-99. However its expenses have shown only a marginal growth of Rs 5.12 crore over the previousfiscal's figures of Rs 34.71 crore.

"In 1998-99, IDFC mobilised Rs 500 crore by way of private placement of 5 year debentures with the State Bank of India (SBI). This was out of SBI's Resurgent India Bond proceeds, which was to be largely used for infrastructure development," the IDFC release said.

As part of its mission to connect non-traditional investors to infrastructure projects, IDFC had introduced the `take-out finance' product starting with a Rs 400 crore agreement with SBI.

"In addition to this, IDFC provided `take-out' facility to retail investors of deep-discount bonds in two projects, enabling the issuing project company to access 16 year retail debt. Approvals for this `take-out finance' product from banks are expected to aggregate to about Rs 1,000 crore during the present year," IDFC release said and added that the `take-out' facility has helped to stretch loan maturities and to introduce non-traditional providers for long term funds into infrastructure projects.

"As part of IDFC'spolicy advisory mandate, the company' policy advisory group has been working on rationalising the policy, legal and regulatory frameworks, towards the objective of providing efficient infrastructure services to the final consumer," the release said.

Meanwhile, the reserves and surplus for the company have reached Rs 169.69 crore as of March 31, 1999, up from Rs 40.89 crore at the end of previous fiscal year.