8 ministries line up assets worth Rs 2.48 lakh cr for monetisation

• The FY22 asset monetisation target for Ministry of Railways is the highest at Rs 90,000 crore

• Niti Aayog has been tasked with preparing the National Monetisation Pipeline for FY21-24

New Delhi: In line with the announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, work on preparing a National Monetisation Pipeline has started as eight ministries have submitted a list of assets worth Rs 2.48 lakh crore to the Niti Aayog for monetisation. According to a report by The Indian Express, the FY22 asset monetisation target for Ministry of Railways is the highest at Rs 90,000 crore, followed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) at Rs 40,000 crore, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways at Rs 30,000 crore, Ministry of Power at Rs 27,000 crore, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports at Rs 20,000 crore, Ministry of Civil Aviation at Rs 20,000 crore, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas at Rs 17,000 crore and Ministry of Shipping, Ports and Waterways at Rs 4,000 crore.

Government think tank Niti Aayog has been tasked with preparing the National Monetisation Pipeline for FY21-24 and has, therefore, asked ministries to identify and share the list of PSU assets that can be monetised.

Asset Monetisation: What's on the list?

The list of PSU assets that have been submitted by the eight ministries include 50 railway stations (for redevelopment) and 150 passenger trains, telecom assets of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Bharatnet, road length of over 7,000 Km, transmission assets of Power Grid, sports stadium, 13 airports owned by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), pipelines of GAIL (India) Ltd, Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and over 30 berths in ports.

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The Ministry of Railways will be looking to hand over the operation of these 150 trains to the private sector and float RFPs (Requests for Proposal) and RFQs (Requests for Qualification) to redevelop 50 railway stations by March-end, said The Indian Express report. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has plans to monetise 7,200 Kms of roads through infrastructure investment trust (InvIT), Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) and securitisation. State-run Power Grid has already begun the process to monetise its transmission assets and is going to announce the first tranche soon. The DoT has begun the process for monetisation of BSNL, MTNL tower assets and optical fibre under Bharatnet. In addition, monetisation of non-core assets of BSNL and MTNL, like land, will also be undertaken. In the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, one of the first sports stadiums to be monetised will be Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium project. The stadiums are to be leased out to the private sector by way of an operation and maintenance contract. 

Other than the eight ministries, some other ministries where monetisation of assets may be taken up include the Ministry of Coal, Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

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