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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will launch the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) tomorrow at New Delhi. The objective of the asset monetisation programme is to unlock the value of investment made in public assets which have not yielded appropriate or potential returns so far.
“NMP comprises a four-year pipeline of the Central Government’s brownfield infrastructure assets. Besides providing visibility to investors, the NMP will also serve as a medium-term roadmap for the asset monetisation initiative of the government,” a statement issued by the government said. The pipeline has been prepared in consultation with Niti Aayog, the government thinktank.
The NMP is part of the FY22 Budget announcement. “Monetising operating public infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new infrastructure construction. An Asset Monetisation dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech.
Highlights of the plan
She highlighted some important measures in the direction of monetisation. These include one InvIT (Infrastructure Investment Trust) each sponsored by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Power Grid (PGCIL) that will attract international and domestic institutional investors. Five operational roads with an estimated enterprise value of ₹5,000 crore are being transferred to the NHAI InvIT. S imilarily, transmission assets of a value of ₹7,000 crore will be transferred to the PGCIL InvIT.
According to the Minister, the Railways will monetise the assets of the Dedicated Freight Corridors for operations and maintenance, after commissioning. The next lot of airports will be monetised for operations and management concession.
Other core infrastructure assets that will be rolled out under the Asset Monetisation Programme are: NHAI operational toll roads; transmission assets of PGCIL; oil and gas pipelines of GAIL, IOCL and HPCL; AAI airports in Tier-II and -III cities; other railway infrastructure assets; warehousing assets of CPSEs (Central Public Sector Enterprises) such as Central Warehousing Corporation and NAFED; and sports stadiums.
The Cabinet, in its meeting on February 28, 2019, approved the procedure and mechanism for asset monetisation of CPSEs/ PSUs /other Government Organisations and Immovable Enemy Properties.
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