The National Highways Authority of India is contemplating issuing bonds worth Rs 500-600 crore in the current financial year to partly finance the golden quadrilateral project, connecting the four metros. The bonds will have components of private placement and public issue.
A senior NHAI official told Business Standard that the exact amount of the bond and the timing would be decided after engaging consultants from the five bids submitted by SBI Caps, DSP Merrill Lynch, Kotak Mahindra, ICICI Securities and GM Morgan.
NHAI has set up an internal evaluation committee headed by Y P Mittal, general manager (finance), for selecting the consultants. The evaluation will be over by May 21.
One member of the evaluation committee said the panel would rank the five consultants. The parameters of the ranking are brand name, fees charged by the firms and experience in handling market borrowings programme. NHAI is in a hurry to select the consultants, he added.
After the ranking, NHAI chairman Deepak Dasgupta would decide whether to engage one or two consultants, the committee member said.
The selected consultants will make a presentation before the NHAI board on the details of the market borrowings exercise. The amount of Rs 500-600 crore seems viable considering the market condition, the official said.
The restructured NHAI board with secretary (expenditure), secretary (Planning Commission), secretary (road transport and highways) as members has been empowered by the task force on infrastructure to take independent decision on such issues without referring it to the ministry of surface transport.
The official said the market borrowings would finance around 20 per cent of the Rs 60,000 crore National Highway Development Project comprising the golden quadrilateral and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's north-south and east-west corridor. The borrowings would be made in two parts; bonds and project specific borrowings.
The official said the Re 1 cess on per litre of diesel would generate Rs 5,000 crore for the central road fund in 2000-2001. Of this, Rs 2,010 crore would be released to NHAI for the NHDP project.
The ministry of surface transport is expected to place a Bill in the current session of Parliament to transfer the cess from the consolidated fund to dedicated road fund under the ministry.
