Epic Concessions 2, a portfolio company of EAAA Alternatives, has signed a concession agreement with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to acquire two toll roads in Tamil Nadu for an upfront payment of Rs 2,259 crore.
The two highway stretches in Tamil Nadu on National Highways 38 and 83 were awarded under the NHAI Toll, Operate, Transfer (TOT) programme. In lieu of upfront payment, Epic Concession will collect tolls on these stretches for 20 years.
It will be the first highway monetisation of this financial year by the NHAI. The stretches are the Trichy-Thanjavur section and the Madurai-Tuticorin section, with a total length of 184.5 km.
These stretches are part of the ToT Bundle 19, which was first bid out in June 2024 and saw many extensions of the last date of submitting bids. Apart from Epic, there were three other bidders for the assets.
“The addition of these roads will expand our portfolio to 26 roads across 17 states, further strengthening our presence across geographies,” Sreekumar Chatra, managing director — infrastructure funds, EAAA Alternatives, said in a statement.
Other ToT bundles for which the bids are currently open are Bundles 20, 21 and 22. According to budget estimates, the monetisation target has been set at Rs 30,000 crore for this financial year.
To get to this target, the NHAI has shortlisted 17 highway stretches of a total length of 1,692 km for monetisation through ToT and National Highways Infrastructure Trust (NHIT).
Beyond this list, the NHAI will identify another lot of stretches that would be monetised using the public Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) that it had launched last year.
The tentative list of road assets for monetisation for 2026-27 is 220 km longer than the 1,472 km that were shortlisted for monetisation in 2025-26. Against this list, the NHAI could monetise 979 km of highways in 2025-26 and raise Rs 28,307 crore.
The second National Monetisation Pipeline that started last fiscal has an overall target of Rs 16.32 lakh crore by 2029-30, of which the share of the highways sector is 26% or Rs 4.42 lakh crore. The funding by the private sector in Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects has been made part of the target. For FY27, the monetisation target for the highways sector is Rs 68,770 crore.