NHAI faces no financial crisis: Gadkari

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is not facing any financial crises, the government said today. This is evident from the fact that the NHAI has prepaid bank loans to the tune of Rs 15,700 crore through InvIT monetization proceeds, Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

An InvIT, denoting infrastructure investment trust (InvIT), is like a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of money from individual and institutional investors in infrastructure projects to earn a portion of the income as return.

While Rs 6,350 crore was prepaid in the last fiscal, Rs 9,350 crore was prepaid this month, he said.

By the end of the financial year 2023-24, the NHAI’s cumulative outstanding was Rs 335,173.38 crore. The government has not mandated the NHAI to raise funds since 2023-24, so debt reduction has started, Gadkari said.

The NHAI has drawn up a plan to service its debt through improved inflows of toll revenue and asset monetization. The amount raised through InvIT mode is used exclusively for debt repayment.

The government enhanced the NHAI’s mandate by assigning the implementation of Bharatmala Pariyojana in 2017. To implement the scheme, the NHAI raised borrowing, the Minister said.