The total outstanding debt of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) stood at around Rs 3.49 lakh crore as on March 31, 2022, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the fund required by NHAI for debt servicing in 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 will be Rs 31,282 crore, Rs 31,909 crore and Rs 5,523 crore respectively.
Gadkari said that the Monetization Plan for operational highway sections – which has the largest share of Rs 1.6 lakh crore in the total asset monetization plan of Rs 6 lakh crore over a period of 4 years i.e. FY22 to FY25, as per National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) announced recently In the center – includes 26,700 km of four-lane highways.
Till date NHAI has monetized 26 sections under toll-operate-transfer (TOT) and InvIT monetization modes.
According to the minister, the total budgetary outlay of the road ministry in BE 2022-23 is Rs 1,99,107.71 billion.