Mumbai-Pune Expressway commuters will have to pay 18% more toll from April 1

Commuters on the Mumbai-Pune expressway will have to cough up more user fees from April 1 next year as the tariff on the important toll road will be revised. A one-way fare on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway for cars comes around Rs 270, while buses pay Rs 797.

"There is a fixed tariff hike every three years for this project, which is 18 percent," Tushar Kawedia, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at IRB Infrastructure told CNBC-TV18 on Wednesday. The tariff hike on the Mumbai-Pune expressway is due next year from April 1, 2023, he added.

On organic growth in traffic momentum, Kawedia said, “considering all the adjustments for tariff, the volume growth that we have seen is around 7-8 percent and we believe this continues for the coming quarters as well.”

August 2022 toll collection numbers have come in around Rs 336 crore, this is a 35 percent year-on-year (YoY) rise. However, 2021 toll collections were suspended on account of farmer agitation.

The collections are improving on a month-on-month (MoM) basis, so there is robust growth in the toll collections predominantly on account of clarified achievements of CODs for a couple of projects and then contribution by the traffic growth.

“This 35 percent growth is led by the traffic growth of almost 7-8 percent on the portfolio basis. We look forward that these numbers are continuing even for September as well and besides this monsoon season, the numbers are quite attractive,” he said.

“Looking at the festive season going forward, the numbers would be better than what has been envisaged till today,” he added.

The board approval has come in for the transfer of the VK1 expressway project to the InvIT fund for a consideration of Rs 1,300 crore.

Sharing its status, Kawedia said, “We are in the process of transferring this asset and it will be completed before the end of October 2022 and this transaction will lead to equity consideration of Rs 342 crore for IRB and the debt of Rs 945 crore will go off the balance sheet for IRB.”

Post this, IRB Infra’s net debt to equity, at a consolidated level, will come down to 102 billion.

The company has achieved financial closure for all five projects.