National Monetisation Pipeline

National Monetisation Pipeline

Subject – Economy

Context – Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will launch the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) tomorrow at New Delhi.

Concept –

• 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.
• NMP comprises a four-year pipeline of the Central Government’s brownfield infrastructure assets.
• Besides providing visibility to investors, the NMP will also serve as a medium-term roadmap for the asset monetisation initiative of the government.
• The pipeline has been prepared in consultation with Niti Aayog, the government thinktank.
• The NMP is part of the FY22 Budget announcement.
• Monetising operating public infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new infrastructure construction.
• Asset Monetisation dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors.
• Some important measures in the direction of monetisation –
  • 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.
  • Railways will monetise the assets of the Dedicated Freight Corridors for operations and maintenance, after commissioning.
• Other core infrastructure assets that will be rolled out under the Asset Monetisation Programme are: 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; and sports stadiums.