IRB, Sadbhav Infra soar up to 5% as NHAI mulls arbitration settlement

In December last year, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkar had informed the Parliament that the ministry has 318 ongoing arbitration cases worth nearly Rs 80,000 crore

Shares of highway developers, including IRB Infrastructure, Sadbhav Engineering, and Ashoka Buildcon, were trading higher on Monday after National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairman Sukhbir Singh Sandhu said that the Authority was looking at out-of-court settlement of arbitration claims worth Rs 70,000 crore.

"We are calling all parties, saying let’s sit across the table and decide instead of first going through arbitration, high courts, speed courts. It takes years and years... If we go into conciliation, the payout will be less than Rs 17,000-18,000 crore, because arbitration is a long-drawn process, and in conciliation, you get the money almost immediately,”