The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to raise ₹15,000 crore in FY24 in two rounds via the infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) route, NHAI Chairman Santosh Kumar Yadav said on Tuesday
“We are working on finalising these two rounds through InvITs. We plan to raise ₹15,000 crore,” Yadav told reporters on the sidelines of a press conference on nine years of achievements of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
He said NHAI will now hold the monetisation exercise in four rounds rather than coming out with plans for the entire fiscal year.
“We will do this in four rounds in each mode (T-O-T, InvITs, etc) as one round comes in three months. The realisation of this round is spread over the year. Besides, when we do this in one attempt and if the exercise fails then the whole process stops. Spreading the rounds makes the exercise more effective,” he explained.
TOT mode
Overall, the MoRTH has targeted to raise ₹45,000 crore in FY24, of which, ₹30,000 crore will be through the Toll Operate Transfer (T-O-T) mode, while the remaining ₹15,000 crore will be through InvITs.
According to Motilal Oswal Financial Services, the NHAI raised around ₹8,000 crore through an InViT in FY22. It also raised ₹14,300 crore via another InViT issue and ₹15,000 crore from the issuance of NCDs in FY23.
The brokerage said that NHAI awarded 6,003 km of national highway projects in FY23, which is marginally below its FY23 target of 6,500 km. The total value of projects awarded stood at ₹1.26 lakh crore in FY23, down around 15 per cent y-o-y.
NHAI’s highway construction pace increased by around 13 per cent y-o-y to 4,882 km in FY23.