The Centre proposes to monetise at least twelve lots of highways spanning over 6,000 kilometres in a bid to encourage the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to pursue commercialisation of roads to raise funds, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the union budget on Saturday.
This comes at a time when the highways construction arm of the government is reeling under debt of almost Rs 2 lakh crore.
The toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model introduced by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2016 enables the Centre to monetise public-funded infrastructure and build new assets. Under the model, the highest bidder wins the right to run and maintain operating road assets for a pre-decided tenure, and earn revenue from toll collection during the period. So far the centre has auctioned three bundles to a tepid response.
She also said the FASTag mechanism aimed at reducing congestion along toll plazas at national highways and increasing digital transactions “encourages us towards greater commercialisation of our highways so that NHAI can raise more resources. I propose to monetise at least 12 lots of highway bundles ... before 2024,” she said.
Accelerated development of highways will be undertaken on a priority basis, she said. This will include development of 2,500 km of access-control highways, 9,000 km of economic corridors, 2,000 km of coastal and land port roads and 2,000 Km of strategic highways..
{{/usCountry}}Accelerated development of highways will be undertaken on a priority basis, she said. This will include development of 2,500 km of access-control highways, 9,000 km of economic corridors, 2,000 km of coastal and land port roads and 2,000 Km of strategic highways..
{{/usCountry}}“Under the Bharatmala economic corridor, 9,000 km is being built, 6,000 km of inter-feeder corridors, 2,000 km of coastal connectivity, 2,000 km of border and international connectivity roads, 5,000 km of national corridors , 800 km of expressways and 2,500 new access-controlled highways...Our budget allocation has increased by nearly three times since financial year 2014-15,” union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said.
The Bharatmala Pariyojana, an umbrella project launched in 2017 and hailed as India’s biggest highways development plan, involves a total of around 24,800 km for construction in Phase 1.
In addition, it includes 10,000 km of work remaining under the older initiative.
“The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) for 2019-2025 pegged the projected capital expenditure for transportation (covering roads, railways, ports and airports) at about Rs 35.7 lakh crore – of which about Rs 4.9 lakh crore and Rs 6.7 lakh crores were projected for financial year 20 and FY21. Under this budget, the finance minister proposed an allocation of Rs 1.7 lakh crore for transport infrastructure for FY20-21. This is marginally higher than the Rs 1.6 lakh crore under the previous year’s budget. Achievement of the overall NIP target would be critically dependent on the effective involvement of the private sector and leveraging of additional resources,” said Peeyush Naidu, partner, Deloitte India.