Farmer agitations cause Rs 600 crore loss on toll collections; Rs 9,300 crore debt at risk: Report
Farmers have been agitating in a number of north Indian states demanding a repeal of three new farm legal guidelines, which had been handed by Parliament.
Assuming that protests would subside by February, the agitations are prone to lead to a steep decline of round 30-35 per cent in toll collections within the affected states in 2020-21, it mentioned. It is in contrast with a 5-7 per cent decline for the remainder of India, which is attributable to the pandemic, the report added.
A complete of 52 toll plazas, together with each public-funded and BOT (constructed, function and switch), on nationwide highways (NHs) in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi-NCR have been immediately or not directly affected on account of farmers protests, the company mentioned.
The income loss within the state highways initiatives in these areas shall be an extra burden, it mentioned.
While the affect on price assortment at some toll plazas started from October 2020 onwards, the identical has intensified to no price assortment with the free motion of automobiles at all toll plazas in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi-NCR since December 12, 2020.
“The common toll assortment per day at these plazas is estimated at Rs 7 crore.
“Until January 26, 2021, these national highway toll plazas would have incurred an estimated revenue loss of around Rs 560 crore, of which Rs 410 crore is estimated for BOT Concessionaires,” mentioned Vice-President (Corporate Sector Ratings) Rajeshwar Burla.
Out of the Rs 9,300-crore of impacted rated debt, Rs 8,550-crore of debt is at a excessive danger of default, whereas Rs 750 crore is rated as funding grade with low to average danger of default, he added.
Some of those entities even have debt service reserves (DSRAs) of round three months in place to make use of for such exigencies; nevertheless, this is able to have been utterly used up by now, he mentioned.
The lack of ability to gather toll for a steady interval of 24 hours and exceeding an combination interval of seven days in an accounting yr on account of agitations/ strikes could be thought-about an oblique political occasion beneath the power majeure clause, the company mentioned.
In such circumstances, with the prices attributable to such occasions, past the insurance coverage cowl, one half of such extra quantity is prone to be reimbursed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), protecting round 25 per cent of the loss of income incurred by the affected initiatives, it mentioned, estimating it to be at Rs 100 crore.
