A Double Whammy for the Disadvantaged

After three decades of disinvestment or privatisation of public sector enterprises’ assets, the Government of India has upped the ante and now rolled out a programme for the sale of services provided by the public sector. Labelled as the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), this programme would allow the government to lease out brownfield infrastructure projects under 12 line ministries across 20 asset classes. The assets to be leased out will include entities like airports, ports, roads, railways, pipelines, telecom, power generation and transmission, mining, hospitality, housing and warehousing units.

The NMP lays down a medium-term road map to lease out these assets to mobilise `6 lakh crore over the next four years for funding greenfield investment projects. More than four-fifths of the revenues are to come from five sectors, including roads (27%), followed by the railways (25%), power (15%), oil and gas pipelines (8%) and telecom (6%). The projects are to be leased out through public–private partnership concessions and capital market instruments like infrastructure and real estate investment trusts depending on the nature of the assets, investor profile, share of control, and so on.