The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has saved Rs 34,369 crore in interest payments by proactively bringing down its debt, Parliament was informed on Thursday.
The total debt of NHAI stood at Rs 2,02,276 crore at the end of FY26. Of the total, bonds accounted for Rs 1,96,217 crore and term loans Rs 6,059 crore, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Lok Sabha in response to a question.
In the first quarter of FY27, NHAI has repaid debt of Rs 6,057 crore, bringing down the total to Rs 1.96 lakh crore.
In FY26, the NHAI repaid Rs 42,265 crore of loans, of which Rs 31,011 crore was prepayment and Rs 11,251 was the repayment of principal. In FY25, the highway builder had repaid Rs 90,635 crore of debt, including Rs 50,000 crore raised from the National Small Savings Fund.
This aggressive repayment brought down the outstanding debt of the highway builder to less than Rs 2 lakh crore from a high of Rs 3.42 lakh crore in FY23. Because of its high debt, the NHAI was barred from taking on fresh loans and the government assumed the responsibility of fully funding its capital costs.
Proceeds of monetisation of highways through infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) are exclusively used for debt repayment. Since the monetisation through InvIT started in FY22, NHAI has raised Rs 59,587 crore through the route.
The aggressive debt reduction by NHAI has not resulted in any slip in performance of the organisation. In FY26, the NHAI constructed 5,313 km of national highways — 15% higher than the target of 4,620 km.