“Availability of long-term resources to meet investment requirement in infrastructure is a key challenge. As per estimate, there may be a gap of 30 per cent in debt financing in 12th plan which is about $300 billion,” Mukherjee said here while launching the credit enhancement scheme of India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL).

As such, the government plans to invest $1 trillion during the 12th plan period beginning April 2012 in the infrastructure sector. This is much above the estimated $500 billion in the 11th Plan.

“There is a need to develop new instruments for improving financing of infrastructure projects in the country. IIFCL, through this product, would provide opportunity for long-term fund from insurance and pension fund. These mechanism would help in development of infrastructure bond market,” he said.