National Monetisation Pipeline
- Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will launch the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) today (23rd August).
- According to an official statement, the NMP will list out the Centre’s infrastructure assets which will be sold over the next four years.
- The objective of the asset monetisation programme is to unlock the value of investment made in public assets which have not yielded appropriate or potential returns so far.
About National Monetisation Pipeline
- Asset monetisation comprises the creation of new sources of revenue by unlocking of the value of hitherto unutilised or underutilised public assets
- NMP consists of a four-year pipeline of the Centre’s brownfield infrastructure assets.
- Apart from providing visibility to investors, the NMP will also serve as a medium-term road map for the Centre’s asset monetisation initiative.
- A national monetisation plan of about ₹6 trillion is in the offing which will have a range of assets from pipelines to power grid pipelines to national highways, ToT (toll-operate-transfer) etc.
- Monetising these assets under Government's control, including in Public corporations, is widely held to be a very important but inadequately explored public finance option for managing public resources,
Important measures in direction of monetisation
- These include:
- One InvIT (Infrastructure Investment Trust) each sponsored by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Power Grid (PGCIL) that will attract international and domestic institutional investors.
- Five operational roads with an estimated enterprise value of ₹5,000 crore are being transferred to the NHAI InvIT.
- Similarly, transmission assets of a value of ₹7,000 crore will be transferred to the PGCIL InvIT.
- Railways will monetise the assets of the Dedicated Freight Corridors for operations and maintenance, after commissioning.
- The next lot of airports will be monetised for operations and management concession.
- NHAI operational toll roads
- Transmission assets of PGCIL
- Oil and gas pipelines of GAIL, IOCL and HPCL
- AAI airports in Tier-II and -III cities
- Other railway infrastructure assets
- Warehousing assets of CPSEs (Central Public Sector Enterprises) such as Central Warehousing Corporation and NAFED 12. sports stadiums.
- Cabinet, in its meeting on February 28, 2019, already approved the procedure and mechanism for asset monetisation of CPSEs/ PSUs /other Government Organisations and Immovable Enemy Properties.