One wayside amenity (WSA) has the potential of doing a combined annual business ranging from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore, with a direct employment potential for 100 people for various services. “If we assume 1000 WSAs come up in the country, it would mean a combined turnover of Rs 50,000 to Rs 10,0000 crore of business activity every year,” says Aritraa Co-founder SB Prasad in an exclusive interview to Rajeev R Roy of Bureaucrats India. “More and more highways and a large number of vehicles on roads are going to give a big boost to WSAs in the coming years. Growing standards of living will also lead to demand for superior quality wayside amenities. We can get a glimpse of high quality WSAs along expressways and around Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru,” added Prasad. Read His Full Interview Here!
 

India is on the threshold of developing high quality highways. What according to you are the prospects of wayside amenities along such highways?

Around Independence of our country, we had only 20000 km of national highways. Now we have around 137000 km highways. The strength of national highway lies in its connectivity with the state highways and even major district roads. India’s road network of 5.9 million km is only next to the US (6.65 million km). National highways with a length of 137000 km, constituting just about two per cent of the total road length carries almost 40 per cent of the traffic of the country. Hence, the development of WSAs along NH or state highways (SHs) has a lot of significance in the overall economy of the country. The need for safe, secure and hygienic premises on the highways will become a basic need in times to come and hence development of modern WSA with all such facilities is quite significant and has excellent prospects.

How can amenities as a sector play a role in India’s ascension to a $ 5 trillion economy by 2025, apart from empowering local communities and their economy?

With the ongoing improvement in the highways in terms of quality and spread, the WSA infrastructure is bound to grow at an amazingly fast pace in the next few years. Each WSA is an island of economic hub, catering to the highway travellers, as well as local market depending upon its location, etc. If we combine the business of fuel, food and vehicle services, motels, farmers mandi, logistics park, etc., each WSA has the potential of doing a combined business ranging from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore per annum, with a direct employment potential of around 100 staff for various services. If we assume 1000 WSAs in the country, it would mean a combined turnover of Rs 50000 to Rs 100000 crore of business activity. Hence, WSA surely has a contribution in the country’s dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy. Modern and smart WSA is a new long term opportunity and at a nascent stage for investments by serious private players.

The National Highways Authority of India has decided to develop world class wayside amenities at over 600 locations across 22 States along highways in the next five years. 130 of these are to be developed in 2021-22. Tenders have already been invited for 120 such wayside amenities. Do you think things are well on track?

Though I am not privy to the exact status on the NHAI plans and progress, I know for sure that NHAI has extremely ambitious plans and they are aiming to achieve their objectives. However, if NHAI makes simpler process, and decisions can me made faster which would enable them achieve their targets of developing the WSAs. The ongoing pandemic since March’20 has certainly slowed down the progress, but I am quite certain that the pace would increase once the situation improves in the coming few months. Not quantity but quality would matter more and hence quality players.

The million dollar question remains to have a fine-tuned ecosystem, which is responsive, promotes local expertise, enabling nature. How is our preparedness with regard to unlocking wayside amenities and cashing in on them economically?

WSAs are like a large hanging fruit which needs to be tapped quickly. However, their development requires good planning, since it involves a lot of capital investments as well as land acquisitions, which has historically been quite a time consuming affair in our country. In the last few years, there have been positive policy changes by many states in relaxing the process and we hope that land acquisitions would become faster and easier in times to come.

We at Aritraa are probably the only consulting agency which has a complete view of the various nuances of highways pan- India, in terms of the current and future traffic, the demographics of the highways, the future plans of NHAI and its implications, etc., and hence we are the best poised to offer our services to any entity on the development of WSAs or any issue relating to the highways sector.

Wayside amenities will include fuel station, electric charging facilities, food court, retail shops, ATM, toilets with shower facility, children playing area, clinic, village Haat for local handicrafts, etc. It sounds so nice but do we have the social and policy ecosystem to sustain such facilities?

With the numbers of travellers multiplying on high quality highways, there is indeed a need for all such services and facilities. If the central and state govt contribute their bit on facilitating the development of WSA, the Indian private sector’s entrepreneurship is quite capable of creating these WSAs at a very fast pace. Once high quality WSAs are established, the travellers always prefer them. This has already been proved wherever such facilities have been established, though few in number today. We can also take a leaf from how successful the WSAs have been in most developed countries, and we are certainly heading in the same direction.

Investment and lands are two critical components of wayside amenities. NHAI has proposed a combined area of over 3,000 hectares for way side amenities. Given your vast industry experience and exposure, do you think what is being said is easier than done? What are your suggestions?

I have also heard and read about the grand plans of NHAI. While I am aware of the various tenders in the process for 100 odd WSAs to be developed along Mumbai-Delhi and Mumbai-Nagpur-Sagarmala Expressways by the year 2023, which may involve 500 to 1000 acres of land, already acquired by NHAI. I am sure NHAI would be also progressing for so many other highways and hence it is not a surprise to see 3000 hectares of land being acquired progressively by NHAI or Private sector for the development of WSA. The government certainly has intent but only time will tell us how aggressive they act in actualizing their intent and plans. WSA should get categorised as a key infrastructure project and to incentivize the investors, the government should make this a single window approval process and time bound.

Return on investment (ROI) is of paramount importance. NHAI is currently offering wayside amenities on a public private partnership model for development and operation on existing highways. Do you think private investors will come forward?

The development of WSA should be left only to the private sector. The government should perform the role of a sincere facilitator. The ROI for each WSA would depend upon its location and potential thereof and hence the investments should be well calibrated for each location, than to have a cut and paste layouts, since no one size would fits all. However the fundamentals would be quite common to all the WSAs in terms of services and its high quality deliveries.

Aritraa Corporation specializes in developing wayside amenities. How is the mood among potential investors with regard to way side amenities development initiative of NHAI? Are they really bullish about this?

Aritraa is already working with few large private sector companies in the development of pan India WSAs and we are quite confident that many more would enter this business, once the proof of concepts are successfully operational. Mark my words, about intense competition in times to come and the survival would be for only those who can understand the customer and deliver their promises on a sustained basis. If we assume the capital cost of Rs 10 crore for each WSA, we are going to witness an investment of above Rs 10000 crore in the next five to seven years in this sector.

How well equipped is Aritraa Corporation in planning, designing and executing wayside amenities projects of world class?

With the extensive experience of Aritraa in this sector, we are well placed in providing complete end- to-end solution for any company willing to enter wayside amenities business. Our manpower is very well exposed to the best designs and practices not just in India, but most parts of the developed countries. We customize what is applicable and required for Indian market conditions.

Last but not the least, apart from wayside amenities, what are the other areas of specialization where Team Aritraa can help potential partners?

We have extensive experience in offering our services for all highways related business, including WSAs, fuel stations, retail, etc. In addition, we also specialize in offering our consulting services for the development of integrated logistics warehouse parks, integrated industrial parks, fuel depots, retail network plans and execution. If you look at all this closely, they are all inter related and hence we have a complete view and skill of integrating all these as and when we get such opportunities.