Thiruvananthapuram: Finance minister Dr T M Thomas Isaac said that infrastructure projects worth Rs 30,000 crore would be granted full approval by Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board by the end of 2017. On other words, the KIIFB will achieve 60 percent of its target of creating a capital investment of Rs 50,000 crore by 2021-22 by the end of 2017 itself.
Dr Isaac said the Board had enough funds in its kitty to meet the initial needs of these projects. At the moment KIIFB has Rs 5000 crore, which includes a share of the motor vehicles tax and petrol cess, and also a small tranche of loan from NABARD. “We can easily scale this up to over Rs 10,000 crore if need be,” Dr Isaac said.
Projects worth Rs 6000 crore had already been granted full approval by KIIFB, some of which have already been tendered and others are all set to float tenders. Another Rs 6000 crore worth projects have been given conditional approval, meaning slight tweaks in their project reports as recommended by KIIFB will get them the green signal. Besides, another set of projects totalling Rs 3000 crore will be taken up by KIIFB during its next meeting this month.
The operational surge of KIIFB was revealed by Dr Isaac while launching the Direct Payment System for Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) projects here on Monday. The DPS will hand over the payment to contractors, service providers and suppliers directly. On the day, payment was transferred online to BSNL, the service provider of the hi-tech school project of the Education Department, and three suppliers including WiproGE, the suppliers of the dialysis centre project of the Health Department. BSNL has been roped in by IT@School, the SPV of the Education Department, to provide free internet connectivity to all high and higher secondary schools in the state.
