Govt unveils SPV for financing metro projects

The Union government has decided to set up a wholly owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to finance and monitor the construction work of metro rail projects across the country. The SPV, which will function under Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA), will raise funds through mix of equity, debt and also borrow from internal and external funding agencies directly through the market or from state-owned India Infrastructure Finance Company.

In this connection, the finance ministry has already finalized the contours of the SPV after series of consultations with various ministries. The SPV, in fact, is a kind of an umbrella body for investments in metro projects across the country and will be an efficient tool to deal with these investments. The evaluation of metro projects and investment in individual metro projects and proportion of equity and debt will be decided by the MoHUA after detailed evaluations, the ministry said in an official statement.