FOCUS: Infrastructure spending a key focus in India's budget

The steel industry has largely welcomed India's 2021-2022 union budget that was announced on February 1 for its focus on infrastructure and government spending.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown in the country resulted in India's gross domestic product (GDP) falling by a forecast 7.7% in the year to March 2021, before rebounding to grow by 11% the year after, according to India's Ministry of Statistics.
The Indian government says the budget reflects its firm commitment to boost economic growth by investing in infrastructure development, which includes more spending on infrastructure than in the previous year's budget.
The key features of the budget include an increase to capital expenditure, an infrastructure financing institution, and the launch of a national asset monetization pipeline.
The gross expenditure for the budget is 34.83 trillion rupees ($477 billion), with capital expenditure of 5.54 trillion rupees, a 34.5% increase on the previous year.

The previously announced National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) which was launched with 6,835 projects has now expanded to...

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