National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has come up with second Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) Request For Proposal (RFP) with an aim to generate a minimum of Rs 5,362 crore from eight road assets in four states. As per the RFP document floated on Tuesday, the total 586.55 kilometres are to be awarded by NHAI in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and West Bengal.

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Earlier in March, NHAI had received the  highest bid of Rs 9,681.50 crore from Macquarie Group-Ashoka Buildcon as against the reserved bid price of Rs 6,258 crore to manage 648 km of national highways in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Gujarat. The first bundle of TOT was floated in December 2017.

Under the TOT model, successful international and domestic private players are required to pay the bidding amount upfront. This upfront money is then utilised by NHAI for construction of new highways. Those bagging the assets will recover their investments as well as returns by way of toll collection.

The government is looking at putting more road assets under TOT to monetise them for its ambitious Bharatmala programme. The aim is to put 75 road projects on a long-term lease.

Given the big size of TOT bundles, foreign players will show interest, experts said.

Among the two players who are keen for a pie of TOT bundles or road assets are Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Cube Highways, said a Gurgaon-based analyst.

According to Crisil Ratings, about Rs 60,000 crore is estimated to be raised by NHAI over the next two to three years.

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The highway projects put under the TOT are the ones built by the government through engineering, procurement and construction model and where NHAI has been recovering toll.

In the TOT Bundle-I of 648 km, Macquarie had quoted highest as 1.5 times against the NHAI IECV of about $1 billion (Rs 6,258 crore).

The highest bid of Macquarie was about $1.5 Billion (Rs 9,681 crore).

Source: DNA Money