NaBFID to Build a National Infrastructure Data Platform: A Credit Bureau for Infrastructure Projects
The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), India's development finance institution for infrastructure, has received approval from the Ministry of Finance's Department of Financial Services (DFS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to build a national repository of infrastructure projects.
The platform, called the National Infrastructure Data Platform (NIDP), will be a single, neutral national source of information on infrastructure projects, covering each project from the idea stage to building and completion.
Data will come from government agencies such as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), from banks and from government platforms such as PM Gati Shakti. It will also build a time-series (year-by-year) database for each infrastructure sector.
The platform is modelled on credit information bureaus like CIBIL: just as those help banks judge a borrower, the NIDP aims to help lenders and investors judge infrastructure projects.
NaBFID will remain the nodal body but may partner with credit bureaus, banks and other financial institutions. Requests for proposal to hire a consultant and a technology partner are underway.
This is NaBFID's third industry-wide development initiative, after its Institute for Infrastructure Development (IID) for training and research and a planned self-regulatory organisation for the sector.
Credit Information Companies (CICs): How Credit Bureaus Work in India
A Credit Information Company (CIC), also called a credit bureau, is a company that collects information about how people and businesses borrow and repay loans. Banks and other lenders send it details of every loan and credit card: how much was borrowed and whether repayments were on time. The CIC stores this as each borrower's credit history and turns it into a credit report and a credit score. When you apply for a new loan, the lender checks this report to decide whether to lend to you, and at what interest rate.
NaBFID's National Infrastructure Data Platform is explicitly designed on the model of credit bureaus. Just as CIBIL-type databases reduced bad loans by giving lenders a borrower's full history, the NIDP aims to give lenders and investors the full history of an infrastructure project, so they can judge risk better before putting money in.
Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) in India
A Development Financial Institution (DFI) is a special lender that gives long-term loans for big projects like highways, power plants and ports, which ordinary banks find too long and risky to fund. Banks mostly take short-term deposits, so lending for 15 to 25 years creates a mismatch between what they owe and what they are owed. DFIs solve this by raising long-term money. India had DFIs like IFCI (1948), ICICI (1955) and IDBI (1964), but most became commercial banks after 1991. NaBFID was created in 2021 to fill this gap for infrastructure.
Building a neutral national data utility on infrastructure is part of NaBFID's developmental role under its 2021 Act, not just its lending role. Better data on projects can bring more private lenders and investors into infrastructure, which is the main purpose of having a DFI.
PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan
The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan is a digital, map-based platform that brings the infrastructure plans of many ministries and states onto one screen. Roads, railways, ports, airports, gas pipelines, power lines and other layers can be seen together, so that projects are planned jointly instead of separately. It was launched in October 2021 and is built on a GIS (map) platform developed by BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics).
Data from PM Gati Shakti is one of the sources the National Infrastructure Data Platform will draw on. Gati Shakti helps the government plan projects; the NIDP aims to give lenders and investors the information they need to finance them.
- NaBFID: set up under an Act of Parliament in 2021; regulated by the RBI as an All India Financial Institution
- Approval for the National Infrastructure Data Platform (NIDP) from the Department of Financial Services (Ministry of Finance) and the RBI
- Data sources: NHAI, banks, PM Gati Shakti and other government agencies
- Modelled on credit information bureaus such as CIBIL
- NaBFID's three industry-wide initiatives: Institute for Infrastructure Development (IID), a self-regulatory organisation, and the NIDP
- India's four credit information companies: TransUnion CIBIL, Equifax, Experian, CRIF High Mark (regulated under CICRA, 2005)