In what has could come as a big relief for infrastructure financing, the ECB policy of December 2015 is all set to be amended. With minimum maturity likely to be halved to 5 years, what does this mean for the cash-starved infra sector? To discuss more on the same, Sunanda Jayaseelan and Anupriya Nair of Bloomberg TV India are joined by K Ramchand, CEO - Infrastructure, IL&FS.

IL&FS Energy Development Co. (IEDC) has embarked upon a first-of-its-kind feasibility study to examine the possibility of integrating wind and solar power production along with energy storage at a single plant. The results are expected by September. "They can be utilised by anyone who wants to come up with hybrid tenders or demonstration hybrid projects," said Sunil Wadhwa, Managing Director. "We have also talked to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to consider fixing a special feed-in tariff for such projects." IEDC, the power and infrastructure arm of IL&FS, currently operates 760 MW of wind farms across seven states and is developing one each at Ramagiri in Andhra Pradesh and Nana Layja in Gujarat. It is setting up solar parks of 5,000 MW capacity in Rajasthan in collaboration with the state government. The company is also into bagasse-based power generation and bio-mass projects.

ORIX Corporation (“ORIX”), a leading integrated financial services group, and INFRASTRUCTURE LEASING & FINANCIAL SERVICE LIMITED (“IL&FS”), an infrastructure development and finance company, today announced that they will expand the wind energy platform with a total capacity of 1,004 MW in India. ORIX has been a significant shareholder in IL&FS since 1993 and the partnership is targeted to also achieve a large-scale solar capacity in the coming years. ORIX has invested in 49% of the equity of the Wind Platform of IL&FS aggregating to 1,004 MW, of which 775 MW is operational, and the balance is under construction. In this project, total 26 wind power plants will be built in seven states where wind conditions are better than other parts of India. The generated power will be mainly sold to state power companies under the feed-in tariff scheme as well as to commercial-scale utility customers.

IL&FS Clusters plans to launch an e-platform to bring multiple SMEs together and link them with financing agencies, financial advisors and technology and marketing consultants.

Waste from construction sites will now be reused to make tiles and other building materials with East Delhi getting its first such recycling plant. The construction and demolition (C&D) waste recycling plant at Shastri Nagar was inaugurated by East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari on Sunday. Spread over 2.5 acres, the plant is a public private partnership between the East Delhi Municipal Corporation and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS).

Computer-based education in government schools in the Union Territory will now get a fillip with the Department of School Education launching the ICT@schools project, a Central scheme after a gap of 10 years. IL&FS Education and Technology Services Limited has been selected for the supply of computers, education software and other management systems.

The Indian Army, as part of the 68th Army Day 2016 Celebrations, conducted an Indian Army Skills Symposium in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The Army delegates visited IL&FS Skill Development Centre located at Okhla. The visit gave an opportunity to the Indian Army leadership to witness the training standards and norms as prevalent in the industry and explore possible avenues to partner with them in this field.

Mother Dairy, whose about 400 Safal outlets in the Delhi-NCR region sell vegetables and fruits, juices, pulses, and spices, will now sell organic compost made by IL&FS Environment to households and farmers. “In the next two-three months, we hope to take this compost to about 5,000 farmers who work with us on a daily basis,” said Nagarajan S, Managing Director, Mother Dairy Fruits & Vegetables Private Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board.

To meet the challenge of handling this projected exponential growth in traffic; Indian ports will need to improve their operational effeciencies in addition to increasing their capacity as, when compared to international benchmarks, there is a huge scope of improvement in various operational parameters of Indian Ports. IMICL’s view on increasing effeciencies in its projects in Ports focused Infrastructure Today December 2015.