The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to monetize highway stretches with a total length of 1,750 km in 2022-23, a move that will allow it to raise around Rs 20,000 crore.

It has prepared an indicative list of road assets that will be monetized in the current fiscal year, which consists of 14 routes with lengths between 6.49 km and 280 km in different parts of the country.

Monetization of assets is central to NHAI's plan to ease its debt burden, which stood at Rs 3.5 trillion at the end of last fiscal year. Monetization of operating assets will occur through the infrastructure investment trusts (InvIT), toll-operate-transfer (TOT), and toll securitization modes.

The NHAI recently canceled bidding processes for two TOT bundles - the sixth and eighth - because the highest bids fell short of expectations.

In 2022-23, the NHAI will not borrow from the market. The budget expenditure for the agency this year is estimated at Rs 1.34 trillion, much more than the level of recent years.

Crisil's Jagannarayan Padmanabhan said the power to sail through the revised target for the current fiscal year comfortably satisfies the current appetite of investors.