“Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) is a Schedule ‘A’/Miniratna Public Sector Enterprise under administrative control of the Ministry of Railways, Government of India.
The company was set up in December 1986 for mobilizing funds from domestic and overseas markets to meet the pre-dominant portion of Extra Budgetary Resources requirement of Indian Railways.
Since inception, IRFC has funded acquisition of 13,349 locomotives, 73,979 passenger coaches and 2,59,661 freight wagons. Our focused approach to supporting the expansion and modernisation of Indian Railways keeps us perfectly poised to make Indian Railways future-ready.
The company has played a critical role in augmenting the annual plan outlay of Indian Railways by way of mobilizing funds from all across the financial spectrum forming part of EBR funding.
The cumulative funding to the Indian Railway sector by IRFC has crossed Rs. 5.50 lakh crore mark by the end of the Financial Year 2021-22.
Indian Railways has embarked on a massive investment outlay for modernization, upgradation and growth of Indian Railway system. Correspondingly, the funding by IRFC has grown exponentially which is evident from the fact that the cumulative funding has been of the order of Rs 2.95 lakh crore during the last 5 years constituting about 61% of the total disbursement made since inception.
Correspondingly, the funding by IRFC has grown exponentially which is evident from the fact that the cumulative funding has been of the order of Rs 2.95 lakh crore during the last 5 years constituting about 61% of the total disbursement made since inception.
The company is constantly diversifying its borrowing portfolio to adequately support the endeavours of Indian Railways, year after year. IRFC is considered the best credit in the domestic capital market which has enabled it to raise funds consistently at 35 to 40 bps lower as compared to other entities in the same ecosystem. the cost advantage derived by IRFC vis-à-vis its peers in overseas financial markets is in the range of 60 to 65 bps.
IRFC is also exploring options to diversify its lending portfolio and other avenues where we can finance other infra projects which are having backward and forward linkage with Indian Railways in the government/private sector with proper techno-commercial due diligence with adequate ring fencing of the loan portfolio.
Since, we have the inherent strength and advantage of raising funds at very competitive rates, we would like to leverage the same to our advantage towards efficient and effective diversification of lending portfolio.
The cost competitiveness of IRFC can be attributed primarily to the best possible rating accorded to it by the prominent domestic as well as international credit rating agencies. The company has been consistently graded ‘Excellent’ by the Department of Public Enterprises for its performance vis-à-vis the targets set out in the Memorandum of Understanding executed with Ministry of Railways, Government of India.
IRFC has achieved consistently “Excellent” performance rating since 2016-17. IRFC was ranked 96th in the Fortune India 500 companies on the basis of FY 2021 financial results.
IRFC is working towards not only becoming a global railway infrastructure funding organization for railway projects, but also evolve as a world class infrastructure financing company covering the entire gamut of PM Gati Shakti programme that would go a long way towards the goal of a truly Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”