Union transportation minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday called on the common people to invest in the National Highway Authority of India’s (NHAI) ‘National Highways Infra Trust (NHAI InvIT) bonds claiming that at 8% it would offer better returns than any other institutions.
This infrastructure investment trust was launched to support the Centre’s National Monetization Pipeline (NMP). India has the second largest network in the world covering about 63.72 lakh kms, as per the NHAI officials.
Gadkari informed that NHAI would raise InvIT bonds of Rs 25 lakh crore for its various projects. He emphasised that common people would be targetted for the sale of bonds apart from institutions and foreign investors.
“There has been a massive response to the InvIT since its launch (on October 17). The issue is already oversubscribed four times. We will provide monthly interest to all the investors. The amount will be used to construct highways and bridges on a public-partnership basis,” the minister said.
Gadkari said the InvIT bonds would soon be listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE), where investors would get the opportunity for investment and trade. “I would be going to Mumbai for listing these bonds, probably next week,” he said.
Stressing that the country’s economy was on a fast-track growth, Gadkari said highways would play a vital role in it. “We would be constructing 26 green expressways across the country. One of those is the completely new Nagpur-Hyderabad highway. It would significantly reduce the travelling time between two cities. The alignment of the road is already completed, and we would soon come out with a DPR. Once completed, the travel distance between two cities would be just three and half hours.”
Gadkari said another project would be the Mumbai-Bangalore highway which would connect the existing Mumbai-Pune expressway. “All these highways would be access controlled and 10-12 lanes wide. In Meerut, we have built a 16-lane highway,” he said.
The city MP said that once Samruddhi highway opens, it would be more convenient to reach Pune through Jalna. “A new road would be constructed from Jalna to Pune, which would be completed in the next one and half years.”
Speaking on the ambitious inter-model station (IMS), the minister reiterated that the project was scrapped due to stiff opposition from environmentalists who also filed a PIL in Nagpur bench of Bombay high court. “We are exploring whether the same facilities can be built at Khapri. We are also planning to shift the heavy traffic at Sindi Dry Port. We had received Rs 1,200 crore from the centre for IMS, but after opposition by the greens at the Ajni Vann, even the contractor backed out. It has affected the plans to replace the existing British-era bridge at Ajni with a new one,” he said.
