Hot on the heels of surpassing monetisation target for the current fiscal , the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has initiated another round of asset monetisation by calling bids for a combined length of 375 km on toll-operate-transfer (TOT) basis.
The TOT bundle 15 offers 124.84-km Trichy-Tovrankurichi-Madurai section of NH 38 in the state of Tamil Nadu, whereas the TOT bundle 16 offers two highway stretches totalling 251.58 km on the Hyderabad-Nagpur corridor of NH 44 in Telangana.
The last date of submission of bids for both the bundles is 28 February. Further, the initial estimated concession value for both the bundles will be disclosed after receipt of technical bids and after declaring the selected bidder.
Earlier in December 2023, the NHAI had awarded TOT bundles 13 and 14 of a combined length of 273 km for Rs 9,384 crore.
IRB Infrastructure Trust, a unit of IRB infrastructure Developers Limited, received the letter of award (LoA) for Rs 1,683 crore TOT-13 bundle comprising Gwalior-Jhansi section on National Highway (NH) 44 and Kota Bypass on NH 76 projects.
Similarly, TOT bundle 14, which consists of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway including the Delhi-Hapur section of NH-9 in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Binjabahal to Teliebani section of NH-6 in Odisha, was awarded to Cube Highways and Infrastructure for Rs 7,701 crore.
With this, the top road agency has managed to award a total of four TOT bundles in FY 2023-24, with a combined value of Rs 15,968 crore, which is higher than the monetisation target of Rs 10,000 crore for the ongoing fiscal.
TOT Model
The NHAI has been authorised to monetise public funded NH projects which are operational and are collecting toll for at least one year after the commercial operation date (COD) through the TOT basis.
Under this model, private developers are given tolling rights on operational road projects in return for an upfront fee to the government which can be used for development of national highways in future.
The TOT Bundle-I, consisting of nine projects totaling 681 km of national highways in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, was awarded in 2018 at Rs 9,681 crore, which was around 1.5 times the initial estimated concession value (IECV) of the NHAI.
Till now, NHAI has monetised 1,614 km of projects for Rs 26,366 crore (excluding ToT bundle 11 and 12) through ToT and 636 km of projects for Rs 10,200 crore through InVIT.