The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has reduced its debt liability in 2024-25 by 27 per cent or Rs 906.34 billion, through asset monetisation, a ban on new borrowing and pre-payment of loans.
As of March 31, 2025, the authority’s total debt was Rs 2.44 trillion, a significant decrease from Rs 3.35 trillion at the end of 2023-2024. Moreover, NHAI was obliged to pay Rs 161.27 billion as principle for bonds maturing during the year. However, it made a payment of Rs 745.07 billion to significantly lower its outstanding debt.
NHAI has completely repaid loans totalling Rs 500 billion, which were obtained from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) in the past and other bank loans totalling around Rs 360 billion. With this, as of April 2025, the outstanding bank loans have reduced from Rs 784 billion to Rs 422.55 billion.
The only purpose of the money raised by the sale of road assets through the infrastructure investment trusts (InvIT) is to settle debt. Toll revenues, which are rising at a pace of 10 per cent annually, also help to finance debt servicing. To this end, around Rs 287.24 billion was raised via monetisation in 2024-2025. During the year, NHAI also recorded the highest-ever single-round InvIT receipt of Rs 177.38 billion. Moreover, about Rs 265 billion was collected in tolls during the year.