India had placed a request with the New Development Bank (NDB), or BRICS Bank, to fund $2 billion in various projects, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday.
“I hope this will be taken up by the board (of the NDB) expeditiously,” said Jaitley, who is India’s governor in the NDB, at the second annual meeting of the bank.
He said India would work with the NDB to develop a strong shelf of projects in smart cities, renewable energy, urban transport, clean coal technology, solid waste management and urban water supply.
The NDB has signed its first agreement for providing a loan to finance district roads in Madhya Pradesh.
Jaitley said India had a huge unmet need for investment in infrastructure, an estimated Rs 43 lakh crore ($646 billion) over the next five years, and 70 per cent of this would be needed in power, roads and urban infrastructure.
Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley said, “India alone offers the opportunities that can rival those of an entire continent. It offers today the possibilities of a full century. And we want to do all this in a cleaner, greener and sustainable way.” This offered an enormous opportunity to an institution like the NDB, whose core mandate was sustainable infrastructure development, he said.
Jaitley said the uniqueness of the NDB should lie in quick loan appraisal, a lean organisation resulting in cheaper loans, a variety of financing instruments, and flexibility in responding to the needs of clients. These would make it distinct from older multilateral development banks, he added.
“Overall, it is our expectation that the bank will bring in a whiff of freshness in project and loan appraisal, as also it will be nimble enough to meet the expectations of its clients,” Jaitley said.
He said emerging markets faced new challenges in the form of protectionism and geopolitical tension. Citing the International Monetary Fund figures, he said the Indian economy was expected to grow at 7.2 per cent in 2017 and at 7.7 per cent in 2018, up from 6.6 per cent in 2016.