ECB norms to consider airports as infrastructure

The RBI had liberalized its ECB policy last August to include funds raised for investments in the infrastructure sector, under the automatic route. However, its definition of infrastructure sector included power, telecommunication, railways, roads and bridges, ports, industrial parks and urban infrastructure like water supply, sanitation and sewage projects.

While framing the policy, airports were left out. This is ironic as theoretically, ECBs are only allowed to entities that have some foreign exchange earnings. In the infrastructure sector, airports and ports are the largest forex earners. Yet, only ports are allowed to raise funds through ECBs.