Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) is increasingly seeing itself as the financier of urban infrastructure projects and not restricted to just the housing segment.

Over the years the share of infrastructure projects in its loan book has been increasing while that of the housing segment has been shrinking.

“We cannot restrict oursleves to the housing sector if we have to grow,” said Sanjay Kulshrestha, who took over as CMD in October last year. The company has also made an application to the Reserve Bank of India to register itself as an Infrastructure Finance Company.

Net profit

In the December quarter the financing institution’s consolidated net profit doubled to ₹519 crore and revenue rose nearly 18 per cent to ₹2013 crore.

In the first nine months of the current fiscal year HUDCO’s loan sanctions were at just over ₹18,000 crore, much lower than the ₹23,609 crore sanctioned year ago, but disbursements were higher at ₹7768 crore compared to ₹5112 crore year ago.

Its outstanding loan book was ₹84,424 crore at the end of the quarter, up from ₹79,290 crore year ago.

The share of housing in its total loan portfolio fell to 4.3 per cent in 9 months of FY24 compared to 14.1 per cent in FY23. In absolute numbers it sanctioned loans worth ₹17,283 crore for infrastructure projects in the FY24 so far and ₹769 crore for housing projects.

Infrastructure projects accounted for 85.4 per cent of total disbursements.

In its total loan portfolio, urban infrastructure accounted for 49 per cent of the portfolio and the remaining housing projects.

In Maharashtra HUDCO has an exposure of ₹7500 crore to various infrastructure and housing porjects, while another ₹30,000-35,000 crore worth of financing is in the works.

The institution has taken board approval to nearly double its borrowing program to ₹35,000 crore.

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