What does the government expect to earn from leasing of public assets like airports, roads, coal mines and hotels? Will it help to boost economic activity?
The story so far: On August 23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), which is expected to fetch around ₹5.96 lakh crore to the government. Following through on the Budget’s plan to monetise public assets to fund fresh capital expenditure on infrastructure, the government released a list of projects and facilities to be offered to private investors over the next four years through structured leasing and securitisation transactions.
Also read | Government to ease path for asset monetisation
What is the National Monetisation Pipeline?
The NMP names a list of public assets that will be leased to private investors. Only brown-field assets, which are assets that are already operational, are planned to be leased out under the NMP. So, to give an example, an airport that is already…