Govt looks to raise ₹30K crore from highway monetisation in FY27

The Centre plans to raise Rs 30,000 crore through highway monetisation and build 10,000 km of roads in FY27, with a renewed emphasis on PPP projects, asset quality, and mobility improvements

The Union government will look to raise ₹30,000 crore from asset monetisation of national highways and construct around 10,000 kilometres in the upcoming financial year, according to its detailed demands for grants for 2026–27.

 

The ministry of road transport and highways has been given the highest capital expenditure allocation of any central government department at ₹2.99 trillion in the 2026–27 Budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1.

 

The ministry has provided the central government one of the highest revenues from monetisation in the past, and is expected to play a leading role in the upcoming second edition of the National Monetisation Pipeline.

 

While asset monetisation brings private investment into operational assets (brownfield), the government is recasting its public-private partnership models to also bring higher investments into building new ones (greenfield).

 

According to the Department of Economic Affairs, the government has a target to bid out national highway PPP projects worth ₹2.6 trillion in the upcoming fiscal year. According to the highways ministry’s projections, it will see private investments of ₹30,000 crore in FY27 from its projects.

 

In past years, the ministry has moderated its targets of aggressive highway building as it shifts focus to road quality rather than achieving record construction numbers. This also follows recent concerns raised over the quality of highways.

 

Around 6,000 kilometres of high-speed corridors will be operational by next fiscal, and 30 per cent of all highway awards will be in PPP mode, the ministry has targeted.

 

For ease of mobility, the ministry is targeting around 1,200 kilometres of highways under the newly launched multi-lane free-flow framework of toll collection, and expects average waiting time at toll plazas to come down to 40 seconds.

 

It is also targeting the scrapping of around 170,000 vehicles in FY27.