NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant wrote a letter to Chief Secretary Aditya Nath Das recently, inviting him and the Principal Secretaries concerned to a national-level virtual workshop on ‘asset monetisation and disinvestment’ on March 9.
More importantly, the Chief Secretary was asked to identify the potential assets and Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs), with focus on infrastructure sectors such as urban development, power, transport, logistics, and PWD, ahead of the event.
It was mentioned that the workshop was being organised for States / Union Territories (UTs) desirous of monetising brownfield infrastructure assets and divest State PSEs.
Mr. Kant said the States and UTs had significant potential asset base, comprising State Highways and Expressways, power generation, transmission towers and distribution entities, minor ports, State airports, waterways, jetties and multi-modal terminals, logistics parks, bus terminals, and warehouses that could be leveraged to mobilise capital for creation of new infrastructure.
The NITI Aayog will be providing end-to-end support on asset monetisation and disinvestment to the States / UTs in identifying, structuring and roll-out of transactions.
The Central government laid a thrust on monetisation of operating public infrastructure assets as a critical financing option for creating infrastructure, the CEO stated, pointing that a clear roadmap had been drawn for the FY 2021-22.
