With the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) unlikely to receive much more budgetary support for 2019-20 than it did in 2018-19, the financier will need to tap the markets for a bigger amount and also look to monetise assets to raise resources. NHAI has armed itself with approvals to borrow Rs 75,000 crore from the markets this year.
Indeed, NHAI’s finances need to be seriously reviewed to ensure that the authority is able to generate cash flows and not be overly dependent on support. Currently, about half of the budgetary support is being used to repay loans — both the principal and interest amounts. But two years down the line, with the repayments going up in 2021-22, the principal alone would be an estimated Rs 17,554 crore while the interest bill would be around Rs 26,240 crore.
