NEW DELHI: The World Bank’s private sector financing arm said yesterday it would raise $2.5 billion in Indian rupee- denominated bonds to fund much-needed infrastructure projects across the country, reports AFP.

The debt sale by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution focused on the private sector, marks one of India’s biggest-ever financing offers.

The proceeds of the bond sale will be used to help finance India’s ambitious infrastructure programme to overhaul its shabby roads, ports and airports among other projects.

India requires big investment to carry out the planned infrastructure programme, expected to cost around $1 trillion in the five years to 2017.

But a shallow bond market and lack of other longterm financing have hampered efforts to raise the necessary money.

Leading Indian financial daily, The Economic Times, called the bumper debt sale a “vote of confidence in the Indian economy” under the country’s new right-wing premier Narendra Modi.