New Delhi: The total outstanding debt of the state-owned National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) stood at around Rs 3.49 lakh crore as of March 31, 2022, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the fund required by NHAI for debt servicing in 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 will be Rs 31,282 crore, Rs 31,909 crore and Rs 30,552 crore, respectively.

Gadkari said the monetisation plan of operational highway stretches — which has the largest share of Rs 1.6 lakh crore of the total asset monetisation plan of Rs 6 lakh crore over a period of 4 years, i.e. FY22 to FY25, as per the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) announced recently by the Centre — includes 26,700 km of highways of four lanes.

Till date, NHAI has monetised 26 stretches under toll-operate-transfer (TOT) and InvIT modes of monetisation.

According to the minister, the total budgetary outlay of the road ministry under BE 2022-23 is Rs 1,99,107.71 crore.

"In addition, NHAI envisages raising of Rs 15,000 crore from SPV and Rs 30,000 crore is investment envisaged from private sector participation," he said.

(With PTI inputs)

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