The infrastructure investment trust sponsored by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will tap the bond market again in the current  financial year to raise funds for acquisition of functional highways.

The size of the bond issue is still being finalised, but it could be in the range of Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 3,000 crore, a senior official said Friday. This amount will be double of Rs 1500 crore raised through bonds by National Highways Infrastructure Trust (NHIT) in October 2022, which was its maiden attempt to raise debt from the public for asset monetisation programme.

Last year the delay in finalising the highway assets for acquisition had left no time for a public issue of bonds so the debt portion was raised from banks and institutions. 

Also Read

In 2024-25 the NHIT is aiming to acquire road assets worth Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore. Last FY NHIT acquired road assets worth Rs 16.200 crore under the National Monetisation Pipeline. This acquisition increased the number of toll roads under NHIT to 15 spanning 1525 km spread across nine states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Telangana. Concession period on these roads ranges from 20-30 years.

For monetisation through Toll Operate Transfer (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. According to ICRA these identified stretches have a monetisation potential of Rs. 53,000-60,000 crore. The officials are, however, sticking to conservative estimates of Rs 54,000 crore from all modes of monetisation that all includes securitisation.

Under the NMP, road sector monetisation was expected to account for Rs 1.6 lakh crore or 27% of total monetisation during FY2022-FY2025. By the end of FY2024, the NHAI together with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had realised around Rs 53541 crore through TOT and InvIT. SInce 2018-19 when highway monetisation programme began NHAI has raised Rs 1.08 crore through recycling of assets.