NEW DELHI: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has raised Rs 6,267 crore from monetisation of the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE), half of the new ring road around the National Capital Region, marking the largest such mop-up by the government agency from a single project. With this transaction, NHAI has raised around Rs 11,000 crore through the monetising process so far this fiscal, which is a little over half the Rs 20,000 crore target for the road sector during 2022-23.
Indian Highway Concession Trust, a joint venture of Maple Highways, a private company incorporated in Singapore, and Canadian pension fund, CDPQ, has bagged the project under the toll, operate and transfer (TOT) model. The 135km expressway, developed as a bypass for Delhi, is the country’s first greenfield expressway built by the government. The project was completed in 2018 after delays of several years with total investment of over Rs 12,000 crore.
“Our monetisation plan is on track. This will get expedited as we complete more projects built through the government funding mode. We are also getting back projects from private players which were bid out under the build, operate, transfer (toll) mode. We hope to get a good response when these will also be offered underthe TOT,” said an official.
NHAI has set a target to monetise nearly 1,750km of NHs in 2022-23 to meet a part of its fund requirement, which may help reduce its debt burden. The debt burden is close to Rs 3. 5 lakh crore.
Monetising road assets is a critical component of the national monetisation pipeline (NMP), which was unveiled in 2021 and envisages monetisation potential of Rs 6lakh crore. Monetisation of road assets has a 27% of the NMP in value terms. According to the NMP, the government aims to raise Rs 1. 6 lakh crore by monetising 26,700km of road. Several sectors, like railways and sports, are lagging in the exercise.
EPE is among five bundles of completed highway projects, which have been monetised under the TOT model. In this, private concessionaires take over the projects for a certain number of years and are responsible for maintenance and toll collection.
