The government could allocate over ₹2.10 lakh crore towards building highways and roads in the FY24 budget.
Officials told ET that the ministry of roads, transport, and highways will get around 10-15% more than the amount allotted during FY23, for the next budget. The FY23 budget had earmarked ₹1.99 lakh crore as Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for the transport ministry, of this, capital expenditure (capex) stood at ₹1,87,744 crore, while revenue expenditure was ₹11,364 crore.
An additional ₹14,978.91 crore was provided as capex during the Supplementary Demands for Grants passed earlier this month.
The capital expenditure was earmarked for constructing 12,000 km of national highways in the current fiscal. This target is expected to be scaled up to around 14,000 km in the next.
“It is also expected that the budget will continue with the stipulation of no borrowing for the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in the next fiscal as well,” a senior official said.
This is a continuation of the stand adopted in the Union Budget 2022-23, where negligible market borrowing, through extra-budgetary resources (EBR), was earmarked to NHAI.
According to official data, NHAI was allocated ₹100,100 crore from cess collections of the centre, the toll plough-back was estimated at ₹13,915 crore, monetisation of National Highways was to rake in ₹20,000 crore, and a nominal ₹1 lakh was to be raised from market borrowings.
It is being viewed as a measure to contain the debt burden of NHAI that stood at ₹3.49 lakh crore as on March 31, 2022.
Highway monetisation
In addition to enhanced allocation for capital expenditure, the Budget 2023-24 is also expected to target higher road monetisation goals through toll operate transfer (TOT) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs).
Under the centre’s ₹6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) spread over four years from FY22 to FY25, operational highway stretches have the highest share of ₹1.6 lakh crore. The road length targeted to be monetised during 2023-24 stands at 7,330 kms.