Macquarie Asia Investment Fund (MAIF of Singapore), which has Ashoka Buildcon as a maintenance partner, has bagged the first 30-year toll-operate-transfer (TOT) bid of the National Highways Authority of India, offering ₹9,681.5 crore.
It has won the bid by offering the maximum amount to win the rights to collect a toll for 30 years and maintain the assets. The projects in the first bundle includes five stretches in Andhra Pradesh, one connecting Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, and three in Gujarat.
The bidder will have to pay up front for the rights.
“This surpassed National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) expectation of ₹6,258 crore,” according to Rohit Singh, Member-Finance, NHAI. Offers of three other bidders were: ₹7,511 crore (Brookefield), ₹6,930 crore (IRB Infrastructure) and ₹6,611 crore (consortium of Roadis Infrastructure Holding and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund).
This is different from the earlier operate-maintain-transfer (OMT) projects in two ways — first, the bidding period is spread over 30 years instead of five-six years. Second, the developer has to share the expected toll up front instead of paying at the end of the year, after the collection.
The investor will also have responsibilities for capacity enhancement in case the road capacity is used up before 30 years. Several projects will also require up-front investment, added Singh. NHAI has shared extensive data on the condition of the road assets, and traffic on these stretches spread over six months.