An estimated 25 toll projects on the national highways involving Rs 19,435 crore of debt will be at risk as a result of new economic corridors proposed under the Bharatmala Pariyojana road building programme, Icra said on Thursday. Of the total debt, about Rs 9,416 crore is considered to be low risk. Projects at a moderate risk have an aggregate debt of Rs 3,483 crore, while the aggregate debt under high risk is about `6,536 crore, which accounts for 34% of the total debt at risk, Icra said. Moreover, toll operators on impacted roads are not entitled to any compensation, as per existing concession agreements. While concession agreements extend protection to toll road projects by restricting construction of additional parallel roads, this clause is not applicable if the length of such additional roads exceed the length of the existing route by 20%, Icra said.
The proposed economic corridors are either longer by more than 20% or completely traverse new routes. So, it does not fit into the description of additional tollways as defined in existing concession agreements. As a result, traffic loss/diversion arising out of these would not get compensated. The Bharatmala network is designed on the shortest possible route connecting the origin and the destination. Of the proposed 44 new economic corridors under Bharatmala, about 21 economic corridors would partially or fully affect existing road projects.
