Short Note : National Investment and Infrastructure Fund

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has signed an MoU with National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) to co-operate in the formation of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to execute the fund arrangement for large size road projects.

What is the NIIF?

• National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) is India s first sovereign wealth fund which was established by the Government of India in February 2015 to maximize economic impact mainly through infrastructure investment in commercially viable projects, both Greenfield and Brownfield.
• It manages three types of funds mainly: Master Fund, Fund of Funds and Strategic Fund.
• These funds were set up to make the infrastructure investments in India by raising capital from domestic and international institutional investors.
• It currently manages funds of over USD 3.4 billion.
• Investors in the NIIF include the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), HDFC group, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Life and Axis Bank along with the Government of India.

Why this matters?

The MoU will provide an alternate source of funding for NHAI which is already looking to attract international investors and fund houses to invest in road building projects in India without taking on the associated risk related to the project execution. The MoU will bring a huge amount of investment at an economical rate for highway development in India and further reduce the stress of borrowing on NHAI balance sheet also.