NHAI borrowings jump a little over 18 times to Rs 620 billion since 2014

The NHAI recently finalised a loan for Rs 250 billion with State Bank of India as part of its fund raising for the current financial year

With the government focusing on road building, a key benchmark of economic activity, the money borrowed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has jumped a little over 18 times to Rs 620 billion since 2014, the year the current government came to power. 

The NHAI’s borrowing was Rs 33.4 billion in 2014-15. This has raised concern on the size of the debt burden. The NHAI has moved away from a purely toll-based Build, Operate and Transfer mode for getting projects going to a Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM). Besides the latter, projects are also undertaken on the EPC (engineering