On Monday, the V.D. Satheesan government constituted a high-level expert committee, led by retired IAS officer Sudha Pillai, to undertake a comprehensive review of the board and recommend a restructuring roadmap to strengthen its long-term sustainability.“The government has decided to undertake a comprehensive review of the institutional, financial, governance and operational framework of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) with a view to strengthening its long-term sustainability, improving governance standards and enhancing its capacity to support the State’s infrastructure development,” the government order said.Besides the chairperson, the panel comprises former Federal Bank MD and CEO Shyam Srinivasan, chartered accountant Nilesh Vikamsey, retired IA&AS officer H. Shubhalakshmi Narayanan and former Union Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj. The additional chief secretary (finance) will serve as the convenor, while the committee can also seek assistance from the State Planning Board, the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT) and other institutions.The latest move follows the Congress’s long-standing criticism of KIIFB. While in opposition, the party had accused the previous Left Democratic Front government of using the board as a vehicle for off-budget borrowing to finance infrastructure projects, effectively bypassing the state’s borrowing limits under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) framework and masking Kerala’s actual debt burden.The criticism had drawn support from successive Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit reports beginning 2020, which described KIIFB’s borrowings as off-budget borrowings backed by state guarantees and dedicated tax revenues.The CAG had observed that these borrowings were effectively liabilities of the state and should be considered while assessing Kerala’s fiscal position. The Union government had later included KIIFB’s borrowings, while determining Kerala’s borrowing ceiling under the FRBM framework—a move that is now under challenge before the Supreme Court.“If we don’t do anything about it (KIIFB), the financially stressed state will fall deep into a debt trap,” Satheesan had said in the Kerala assembly in February last year, when he was the Leader of the Opposition.