Next toll-operate-transfer bundle to have Uttar Pradesh highways

NHAI picks Mazars as consultant for the sixth round

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has started the process of bringing out yet another toll-operate-transfer (TOT) bundle, as part of its monetisation drive.
 
It has appointed consulting firm Mazars for evaluating stretches for the sixth such round of projects offered to private players on a TOT basis.
 
The projects to be offered this time cut across Uttar Pradesh that goes to polls early next year. These include the Agra Bypass and Jhansi-Shivpuri National Highway stretches.
 
The projects would be clubbed into two bunches. The contracts would also be offered on the lines of the previous bundle of TOT, where there was no base price at the time of bidding.
 
The practice of fixing a base price was abandoned in the last round as the authority felt that several concessionaires were unwilling to commit large sums of money to take up these tolling and maintenance contracts amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
NHAI has issued many requests for proposals (RFP) to award contracts for tolling, operation and maintenance of various National Highway stretches under the TOT mode.
 
TOT is an asset recycle programme wherein, already operational National Highways are given to private entities on long-term contracts.
 
Total contract period of a TOT is 20 years in which a concessionaire would be required to maintain and operate the stretch. The concessionaire, in turn, gets the right to collect and retain the user fee for these stretches for 20 years.

The authority has generated over Rs 17,000 crore through the TOT model, so far. For the most recent fifth bundle of TOT actions, NHAI got bids of over Rs 600 crore more than the reserve price.
 
Adani and DP Jain emerged the top bidders in the fifth round of TOT, where two bundles were offered in Gujarat.
 
On August 3, 2016, the Union Cabinet authorised the NHAI to monetise public-funded National Highway projects that are operational and generating toll revenues for at least two years.
 
The transport sector had been allocated an enhanced outlay of Rs 83,000 crore in the Union Budget for development of roads and highways. The remaining funding requirement is to be met through direct investment by private companies or the monetisation programme.
 
In March this year, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said NHAI was planning to raise Rs 1 trillion through monetisation of National Highways in the next five years. He exhorted industry players to come forward to reap rich dividends by investing in this segment.