Govt drops plan to directly sponsor roads sector InvITs

07 Sep 2022 CW Team

The ministry of road transport and highways has abandoned a plan to invest public funds in infrastructure development through government-sponsored road and highway sector InvITs.

The objective currently is to bring retail investment through non-government and private sector InvITs, for which market regulator permission is pending.

Previously, the government proposed launching various road and highway InvITs in the public sector to generate funds from small investors with guaranteed returns backed by sovereign guarantees.

However, the long gestation period of highway projects, as well as their changing revenue streams, has spurred a rethink: rather than providing guaranteed returns on these financial instruments, the Centre will allow the market to determine returns.

The change in plans means MoRTH will no longer sponsor new public InvITs. However, all private InvITs could tap funds from retail investors. Leading InvITs registered under Sebi include Brookfield-sponsored India Infrastructure Trust, MEP Infrastructure Investment Trust, IRB InvIT Fund, Tower Infrastructure Trust, and IndInfravit, sponsored by L&T Infrastructure Development Projects.

Also Read
Delhi to build flyover to curb traffic
First transport nagar in Jharkhand anticipated being finished in two..

Infrastructure Transport

12 Mar 2026

Kavach 4.0 Commissioned on Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah

"Kavach version four has been commissioned on 1,452 route km, covering the high density Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah corridors. The rollout included laying 8,570 km of optical fibre, installation of 1,100 telecom towers, deployment of trackside equipment over 6,776 RKm and establishment of 767 station data centres. Trackside implementation has been taken up on 24,427 RKm covering Golden Quadrilateral, Golden Diagonal and High Density Network sections. The programme aims to strengthen signalling and train protection on key routes.Kavach is an indigenously developed automatic train protecti..

Railways Advance Kalyan–Murbad Line And Mumbai Capacity Expansion

"Indian Railways is advancing multiple rail infrastructure projects in Maharashtra, including the sanctioned Kalyan–Murbad new line and sizable investments under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project and the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project. The Kalyan–Murbad 28 km new line has been sanctioned at Rs 8.36 billion (bn) on a 50:50 cost-sharing basis with the Government of Maharashtra and has been declared a Special Railway Project for land acquisition; proposals covering 214 hectares are at various stages of acquisition. Budgetary outlay for projects falling fully or partly in Maharash..

Parliamentary Panel Flags Funding Gaps in Heavy Industries

"The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry (Rajya Sabha) presented its 332nd report on the Demands for Grants 2026-27 of the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI). Figures converted from crore and lakh are expressed in million (mn). The Budget Estimates 2026-27 for the Ministry stand at Rs 79,399 mn against a projected requirement of Rs 94,843.2 mn, a shortfall of about 16 per cent, with revenue at Rs 79,370.8 mn and capital compressed to Rs 28.2 mn from Rs 5,020 mn.The committee flagged recurring BE-to-RE compression and declining revised estimate utilisation, and calle..