Govt to raise $81 billion selling infrastructure assets, including airports

The sale of state-owned infrastructure assets, which includes airports, over the next four years is expected to bring in ₹6 trillion ($81 billion) for the Centre. This corpus will help the government to augment its finances and reduce the budget deficit, said media reports.

The Modi-led government will look at selling road and railway assets, airports, power transmission lines and gas pipelines, said a Bloomberg report quoting anonymous sources.

The roadmap of this key monetisation divestment plan involving infrastructure assets will be made public by the finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday (August 23).

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This is in sync with the government’s larger strategic policy for the state to “retain” their hold in only a few sectors and privatise the rest, said the Bloomberg report. The sales from these assets are supposed to help the government to raise ₹ 1.75 trillion this year until March 2022.

This will ostensibly aid the government to tide over the dip in tax revenue due to a crippling COVID-19 pandemic, said media reports. Inf act, this asset sales is critical for Sitharam to plug the nation’s budget deficit, which she expected to be 6.8 per cent of the gross domestic product in the financial year that began April 1.

Sitharaman will focus on unveiling the monetisation of infrastructure assets held by 11 ministries on Monday and will not go into divestment in Life Insurance Corp. of India, Air India Ltd. etc.

The revenue from monetising roads is expected to bring in ₹ 1.6 trillion, assets from railways are slated to fetch ₹ 1.5 trillion, while power sector assets may add another ₹1 trillion. And another ₹ 1 trillion is expected from public warehouses, civil aviation and port infrastructure, sports stadiums and mining assets, the report added.

In a statement on Sunday NITI Aayog in fact had referred to the monetisation plan, announced by Sitharaman in her annual budget speech. The government think-tank had said that this plan will serve as a “medium-term road map” for the government’s asset sale initiative.