IIFCL Infra Debt Fund

India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL) on Wednesday said it expects its $1-billion (about . 5,000 crore) infrastructure debt fund (IDF) to be operational by the end of next month. "The company has initiated the process for launching an IDF along with other co-sponsors and investors for a corpus of around $1 billion with an investment of around . 1,500 crore through mutual fund route," IIFCL chairman and MD SK Goel said after announcing its annual performance.

"We expect IDF to be operational before May end," he said, adding, the company has already got provisional approval from the Sebi. He said, IIFCL decided to go for mutual fund route because it is more flexible. Of the total fund size, $500 million would be raised from the domestic market while remaining would be from the overseas market, he said. Domestic investors would include IIFCL, IDBI Bank and LIC while ADB has committed $200 million, Barclays and HSBC likely to bring in $150 million each. The country's poor infrastructure is seen as a major bottleneck for economic growth.