<span style="color: #222222;">Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman  has encouraged the New Development Bank (NDB) to facilitate private sector participation, and explore more innovative financing structures. She has also asked them to develop a pipeline of bankable projects, and promote environmental and social safeguards to enhance the sustainability of infrastructure. She was attending the 6th annual meeting of Board of Governors of  NDB through video-conference.  The Minister  acknowledged the Bank's achievements and progress made over the last six years. She highlighted NDB's role in countercyclical lending through a 10 billion dollar Emergency Assistance Programme for supporting the member countries in fighting the COVID pandemic. She also stressed the need for NDB to maintain and improve upon the ratings assigned by international rating agencies through adequate capitalisation, high quality governance and prudent management.<br />'' <br />'' Ms Sitharaman mentioned that India is going to set up a new Development Financial Institution with initial paid-up capital of around 3 billion dollars with a lending target of 69 billion in next three years.<br />'' <br />''The NDB is  a multilateral development bank set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa,  (BRICS) in 2014 with the objective of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects.</span><br />