The Finance Minister announced to give brownfield assets on lease ownership to remain under government control.
On Monday, the finance minister announced the National Monetisation Program, a four-year plan to raise a net worth of Rs 6 lakh crore.
It aims to provide brownfield assets on lease to private organisations, transmitting revenue rights to them and utilising the fund for building Greenfield infrastructure across the country.
Under the union budget 2021-22, the government decided to use brownfield assets to generate future infrastructure.
Asset monetisation is the conversion of support, in this case, the contracts to build highways, bridges, roads etc., into economic value.
At an event, Niti Aayog chief executive Amitabh Kant said that the assets to be monetised are spread across 20 asset classes and 12 line ministers.
Different models will follow for monetisation depending on the nature of assets like operating, maintaining, and then transferring.
The government aims to use existing assets to involve private participation for maintaining the property, operating them according to themselves for the next four years.
The government has also made clear that this is not privatisation.
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant stated that they are fully committed to the success of the National Monetisation pipeline. It is good to bring private ones for better development.
The Roadmap for Implementing
About 66% of assets will comprise roads, railways, and the private sector and other remaining forthcoming sectors include telecom, mining, aviation, ports, natural gas and petroleum product pipelines, warehouses and stadiums.
The annual target is as such; About 15% of assets with an indicative value of Rs 0.88 lakh crore are presumed in the current financial year, Rs1.62 lakh crore in FY23, Rs 1.79 lakh crore in FY24 and Rs 1.67 lakh crore in FY25.
The report on NMP has been provided in two volumes. Volume I is described as a guidebook, documenting the abstract strategies and possible criteria for asset monetisation.
Volume II is the roadmap for monetisation, including the pipeline of core infrastructure assets under Central Govt.
Currently, only assets of central government line ministries and CPSEs in infrastructure sectors have been included.
The process of coordination and collation of asset pipelines from states is currently ongoing.
Assets to Include
Among projects, the government plans to lease 26,700 km of roads, 90 passenger trains, 400 railway stations, 28,608 circuit km transmission lines, 286,000 km of Bharat net fibre network and 14,917 towers owned by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and Mahanagar telecom Nigam Ltd.
Other core infrastructure assets leased under NMP include airports in smaller cities, warehousing, ports, stadiums and Natural gas pipelines.
