The finance ministry is likely to notify the norms for Rajiv Gandhi equity scheme mutual funds and guidelines for issue of rupee denominated infrastructure debt bonds in the coming days.
CNBC-TV18's Malvika Jain reports, both these announcements were made by the Finance Minister during the Budget and the finance ministry is now taking steps to issue guidelines to operationalise these schemes. As far as the infrastructure debt bonds are concerned, they are going to be pre-denominated and the guidelines are likely to be notified by Friday. Through this exercise the government intends to ensure cheap access to funds in long term infrastructure projects and secure inflow of foreign currency. The government feels that the time is right to notify these guidelines because the rupee has more or less stabilised and in order to make it more investor friendly, they have clarified that a reduced withholding tax of 5% would be applicable instead of 20%. The government is also trying to its best to make these guidelines sophisticated and investor friendly. The Rajiv Gandhi Equity Scheme on the other hand focuses on encouraging retail investors by providing tax incentiv