Even though the sector is not new for the minister and neither are the challenges, this time around the ministry’s focus should be seamless project execution.
There are many challenges that the highway sector is grappling with including ensuring availability of construction materials and machinery, timely completion of projects, availability of trained human resources, and addressing concerns on road congestion and safety.
Besides road transport and highways, Gadkari in his decade long tenure has also handled portfolios including Shipping, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Micro, Small and Medium enterprises, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.
Some of the marquee road projects inaugurated during his last tenure include the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and the Dwarka Expressway, which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister in March 2024, a month before the start of the Lok Sabha elections.
The INR 4100 crore expressway would decongest the traffic between Delhi and Gurugram.
Asset monetization would be the key driver for the roads and highways sector as the Union government has raised INR 40,314 crore through various modes of asset monetisation in financial year 2023-24, against the target of INR 28,968 crore.
The ministry had raised INR 15,968 crore through monetisation of 4 toll-operate-transfer (TOT) bundles, INR 15,700 crore through Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) and INR 8,646 crore through securitisation.
The ministry had raised INR 32,855 crore in 2022-23 through various modes of asset monetisation.
Currently, MoRTH monetises its assets under three different modes -- toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model, Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) and project-based financing, in order to provide all categories of investors an opportunity to invest in assets pertaining to highways and associated infrastructure.
State-owned National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has identified 33 highway stretches cumulatively spanning 2,741 kilometres to monetise during the current financial year through toll operate transfer (TOT) and infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) modes.
The identified stretches include Lucknow-Aligarh, Kanpur-Ayodhya-Gorakhpur, and Bareilly-Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh, Gurugram-Kotputli-Jaipur bypass and Jaipur-Kishangarh in Rajasthan, Panikoili-Rimuli in Odisha, Chennai bypass in Tamil Nadu, and Muzaffarpur-Darbhanga-Purnia highway in Bihar.
The asset would be monetized through ToT/InvIT modes.
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