(F.E)
The government’s decision not to burden the National Highways Authority India (NHAI) with additional borrowings in FY23, by providing a much higher budget support of Rs 1.34 lakh crore is aimed at reining in the entity’s burgeoning debt that stood at Rs 3.38 lakh crore at the end of November 2021, according to official sources. However, this doesn’t mean NHAI would not scale up its borrowings next year.
The idea is to give the entity that borrows on the strength of its balance sheet even as an implied sovereign support serves as an indirect aid, the leeway to mitigate its debt. At the same time, harnessing of non-debt capital through other sources like monetisation of operational highway stretches through the toll-operate-transfer mechanism and the InvIT routes would continue.
The NHAI was given a budgetary support of Rs 65,060 crore in FY22. The authority was allowed to borrow Rs 65,000 crore each in the current fiscal and in the previous fiscal. At the same pace of borrowing, its debt would have breached the `4 lakh-crore mark by the end of FY23. Servicing cost of debt, estimated to be Rs 30,000 crore in FY23, is putting a strain on NHAI’s balance sheet.
