UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 5 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2017 question on National Investment Infrastructure Fund
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2017
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectIndian Economy
- TopicIndustry
- DifficultyMedium
- TypeStatement
With reference to ‘National Investment and Infrastructure Fund’, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1. It is an organ of NITI Aayog.
2. It has a corpus of Rs. 4,00,000 crore at present.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Show answer
Answer: D. Neither 1 nor 2
Verdict
The answer is neither 1 nor 2. The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund is not an organ of NITI Aayog and its corpus is far smaller than stated.
Analysis
Statement 1 is INCORRECT. The Fund was created by the Government of India to enhance infrastructure financing, announced in the Union Budget for 2015-16, and its Governing Council is an advisory body chaired by the Finance Minister. It sits with the Ministry of Finance, not with NITI Aayog. Statement 2 is INCORRECT on the figure. The proposed corpus was about forty thousand crore rupees, an order of magnitude below the four lakh crore claimed in the statement.
Source
The Hindu reporting on infrastructure financing incentives.
How to crack it
Attack the number first, because a figure inflated by a factor of ten is a common construction and is falsifiable without judgement. Then apply the institutional test: a fund that deploys capital sits under the Finance Ministry, whereas NITI Aayog is a think tank with no financing powers. That functional separation, planning body against spending body, is the same idea that resolved the 2016 question on the Financial Stability and Development Council.