The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is aiming to raise around Rs 54,000 crore from monetisation of brownfield road assets and project-based financing in the current financial year, which will be its highest ever mop-up via this route, a senior official said.
The just concluded financial year (FY24) saw NHAI mopping up Rs 38,334 crore via the monetisation programme which included components like Toll Operate Transfer (ToT), Infrastructure Investment Trust and project based financing.
For monetisation through ToT and InVIT the NHAI has identified 33 highway stretches with a total length of 2741 km spread all over India for monetisation in 2024-25. These stretches brought in Rs 4931 4 crore revenue to NHAI last year.
The official, however, did not comment on the share of ToT and InVIT in the monetisation of these highways.
In 2023-24 the highway monetisation programme of the government got a good response from investors and NHAI raised Rs 15968 crore by transferring roads grouped together in four bundles through ToT. The InVIT route brought in Rs 15700 crore.
From project-based financing which involves stretches on Delhi-Mumbai Expressway Rs 6.666 crore was raised. According to analysts Rs 15,000 crore was to be raised through securitisation in FY 24. Now the remaining part and some more would come in this financial year.
Under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), the road sector was expected to account for Rs 1.6 trillion or 27% of total monetisation between 2022 to 2025. It has raised Rs 1.08 trillion so far which includes Rs 40,227 crore from project-based financing.
According to ICRA the asset monetisation activity is expected to remain buoyant in this financial year too.
The Indian road sector (public and private) witnessed strong pick-up in mergers and acquisitions activity over the past three years. InvITs, along with infrastructure-focussed funds, have emerged as the prominent investors.
Some of these InvITs are backed by globally reputed and stronger sponsors like CPPIB, CDPQ, International Finance Corporation, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, among others. Given their ability to tap long-term capital at competitive rates, these investors, through their InvIT platform, have become leading buyers of operational road assets in India. In terms of value, InvITs alone accounted for around 70% of the transactions in the last one year, ICRA said.