NHAI floats bids for ₹4,995-cr TOT projects

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has come up with its third TOT bundle, which is now up for bidding to private operators under the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model entailing an estimated concession value (IECV or reserve price) of ₹4,995.48 crore. In this round of auctioning NHAI called for tenders for its third attempt to auction public highways. In this third bundle, NHAI has placed 566.27-km of nine national highways under the hammer. More than 243-km stretches are located in Tamil Nadu (Madurai to Kanyakumari on NH7), a 73.79-km stretch is between Hazaribagh-Ranchi in Bihar (NH-28) and a 73.79-km stretch is of the same highway extending into Jharkhand. There are stretches of up to 169-km in Uttar Pradesh on three different highways (NHs 24, 25 and 26). On this score, the agency has actively sought inputs from the industry and all stakeholders and possible bidders, said MD & CEO of Centrum Infrastructure Advisory, Sandeep Upadhyay, who also said that long-term investors are now more positive about making largeer commitments. The third bundle will be the smallest offered so far under TOT, in terms of both kilometer length and the base price expected as the first attempt at TOT had met with a thumping success. The second bundle at the end of last year was eventually cancelled after NHAI received bids lower than the base price. as the highways authority faced issues with the bidders.