Karnataka gears up for asset monetisation

The Basavaraj Bommai government is screening over 3,000 state-owned land parcels and other such assets that can be used to generate revenue as part of the Centre’s ambitious National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP).

Infrastructure owned by the departments of agriculture, tourism, the Mysore Sales International Ltd (MSIL) and others is under consideration.

Unveiled last year, the NMP aims at leasing out core infrastructure assets to private players to generate Rs 6 lakh crore over a period of four years, which will be used to fund new and ongoing projects.

The Infrastructure Development Department circulated a questionnaire within the government seeking details on land parcels, buildings and public-private partnership (PPP) projects that can be monetised. Over a dozen departments have responded with details on 3,688 land parcels.

The Karnataka State Agricultural Produce Processing & Export Corporation Limited, which owns seven land parcels, has offered to rent them out.

Similarly, the Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC) is willing to monetise its proposed administrative building with a commercial complex at Kalaburagi.

The Tourism department has identified projects such as passenger ropeway at the Anjanadri Hills, development of adventure sports at 21 water bodies, wayside amenities at Ballolli village (Indi, Vijayapura) among others.

The MSIL and Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (Keonics) have offered to use their vacant lands for monetisation (Keonics, for example, has 44 acres of vacant land on which it proposes to build IT/software parks).

Niti Aayog briefed state officials on the NMP at a state-level workshop held recently, identifying state highways, urban bus depots, sports complexes, minor ports, airports among others as “potential assets in Karnataka”.

In its presentation, the think tank asked officials to consider the following models for monetisation of core assets: Operate Maintain Transfer (OMT), Toll Operate Transfer (TOT), Operations Maintenance & Development (OMD), Rehabilitate Operate Maintain & Transfer (ROMT). It cited the example of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway TOT as an example.

Capital market-based models include Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvIT) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT). Transmission assets monetised by the Power Grid Corporation of India by raising Rs 7,500 crore was an example the think tank cited for InvIT.

Nationally, proposals worth Rs 1.6 lakh crore are in various stages of processing under PPP, the think tank said.