Since July 2014, RBI has permitted banks to issue long-term bonds with a minimum maturity of seven years to raise resources for lending to (i) long term projects in infrastructure sub-sectors, and (ii) affordable housing. The instruments are exempted from regulatory requirements such as maintenance of CRR/SLR and priority sector lending. Infrastructure debt funds for supporting take out finance 22.
Recognizing the constraints in incremental financing by banks to the infrastructure sector, the banks have been permitted to enter into takeout financing arrangement. To augment debt resources for financing infrastructure, setting up of Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDFs) was permitted to refinance projects.