Pension Funds as an Infrastructure Financing Avenue: An Exploratory Study

Development of infrastructure is a sine qua non of economic development. Development of agriculture depends, to a considerable extent, on the adequate expansion and development of irrigation facilities. Industrial progress depends on the development of power and electricity generation, transport, and communication facilities. Of course, if proper attention is not paid to the development of infrastructure, it is likely to act as a severe constraint on the economic development process of the countiy. As evidenced, India has reemerged as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. India could unleash its full potential, provided it improves its infrastructural facilities, which are at present not sufficient to meet the growing demand of the economy. A major concern in perpetual infrastructure development is funding. Taking into consideration the current recessionary trends in world economy, slow industrialization and volatile FDI scenario, financing infrastructure development seem to be a major obstacle. Innovation in finance in the recent past has provided large number of avenues such as BOT, BOLT etc. To extend this innovation further, this paper aims to explore the use of pension funds as an option to finance infrastructure projects. The paper shall discuss the Cost-Benefit Analysis of use of Pension Funds in infrastructure financing with specific reference to India. The paper also aims to discuss the learning from similar experiments carried out in other parts of the world.