In a rare move, the interim budget for FY25 clubbed the government s disinvestment and asset monetisation targets, instead of declaring them separately. The combined realisation is budgeted at Rs 50,000 crore for FY25, against Rs 30,000 crore (revised estimate) in FY24 and Rs 61,000 crore in the BE for this fiscal. Of course, the combined target is still less than 2% of the government s expected non-debt receipts for FY25.
"We have undertaken asset monetisation in a big way. This has been possible because of the attractiveness of the road projects, higher returns to investors and operational experience of players prompting them to go for greater investments year-after-year," said a senior official, who did not wish to be identified.
The government has been pushing state-run oil companies for years to monetise their assets to raise resources that can be deployed in new projects. Three years ago, the government had drawn up a plan, which expected state oil and gas companies to transfer some of their pipelines to InvITs and sell minority stakes in those to raise Rs 17,000 crore. The plan didn t take off.
"States need to scale up their initiatives for asset monetisation in order to increase non-tax revenue. The monetisation of assets unlocks their value, eliminates their holding cost and enables scarce public funds to be deployed into new projects, thus fast-tracking new infrastructure creation," the report recommended.