NHAI Surpasses Monetisation Target For Current Fiscal, Raises Rs 9,384 Crore Through Award Of TOT Bundle 13 And 14

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), said on Monday (18 December) that it has awarded two toll, operate and transfer (TOT) bundles 13 and 14 of a combined length of 273 km for Rs 9,384 crore.

With this, the top road agency has awarded 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 current fiscal.

IRB Infrastructure Trust, a unit of IRB infrastructure Developers Limited, has 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, has been awarded to Cube Highways and Infrastructure for Rs 7,701 crore.

As per the NHAI, the contract period for TOT is 20 years, during which concessionaires would be required to maintain and operate the stretch. In lieu of this, concessionaire will collect and retain user fee for these stretches in accordance with prescribed fee rates under NH Fee Rules.

TOT Bundles 11 And 12

Earlier in October 2023, NHAI had awarded TOT bundles 11 and 12 of a combined length of 400 km for Rs 6,584 crore.

The TOT bundle 11 for the 84-km-long Allahabad Bypass on NH-19 in Uttar Pradesh has been awarded to Cube Highways and Infrastructure for Rs 2,156 crore.

Similarly, the TOT bundle 12 for the 316 km long Lalitpur-Sagar-Lakhnadon section that passes through the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh has been awarded to the IRB Infrastructure Trust for an amount of Rs 4,428 crore.

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 toll-operate-transfer (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 & 12) through ToT and 636 km of projects for Rs 10,200 crore through InVIT.