Amount Raised Through Infra Investment Trust Used Exclusively for Debt Repayment by NHAI, Loan Reduction Has Begun, Says Gadkari

Union minister Nitin Gadkari, assuring that the financial health of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is optimum, informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday that the body under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has drawn up a plan to service its debt through improved inflows of toll revenue and asset monetisation and the amount raised through the Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) mode is used exclusively for debt repayment.

The minister said the Union government has not mandated NHAI to raise funds since FY 2023-24. Thus, the debt reduction has started.

“NHAI is not facing any financial crises which is evident from the fact that NHAI has pre-paid bank loans to the tune of Rs 15,700 crore through InvIT monetisation proceeds — Rs 6,350 crore in the last financial year and Rs.9,350 crore in July 2024,” the minister said.

He added that the government enhanced the mandate of NHAI by assigning the implementation of Bharatmala Pariyojana in 2017. To implement the scheme, NHAI raised borrowing as per Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) approved by the government in the Union Budget.

The outstanding debt on the NHAI crossed one lakh mark in 2017-18 as it touched Rs 1,21,931.34 crore.

In 2014-15, the outstanding debt of the NHAI was Rs 23,355.66 crore. It increased by 15 times to Rs 3,35,173.38 crore at the end of 2023-24. The highest amount — Rs 74,986.81 crore — was raised by NHAI in the year 2019-20. In the next two years, the NHAI raised more than Rs 65,000 crore per year. The borrowing dropped to Rs 797.58 crore in 2022-23 and nil in the last financial year.

The loan outstanding of the NHAI peaked in 2021-22 with Rs 3,48,522.15 crore. Since then, it has been on a drop — Rs 3,42,801.87 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 3,35,173.3 in 2023-24.

InvIT was launched by the NHAI as a mode to monetise operational roads, as it has the largest share under the National Monetisation Pipeline. In its first offering, NHAI InvIT had attracted two international pension funds, namely Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, as anchor investors.

The balance units were subscribed to by a diversified set of domestic institutional investors, comprising pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, banks, and financial institutions.

As part of its continuous monetisation strategy, NHAI has offered additional three roads of aggregate length 247 kms to NHAI InvIT.