Highway Infrastructure focuses on South for growth

Highway Infrastructure Ltd which is into tollways collection among others is now focusing on the southern states where is sees vast opportunities for growth. 

“As a strategy for the company we have decided to expand to the southern states. Now, our focus has shifted to southern states. Earlier we were more focused on the northern part of India and the northern, the western part of India,” said Riddharth Jain, Director & CEO, Highway Infrastructure Ltd in an interview.

“But with a few strategy changes after the IPO, after getting more capable people into the team, we have changed the strategy to focus on the south. We are very, very confident now for pan-India reach,” he added. 

”The southern states and parts of Gujarat and Delhi NCR region have shown promising returns for us,” he said. 

In January 2026, the company commenced toll operations at Kaza Fee Plaza on the Chilakaluripet–Vijayawada section of NH-16 in Andhra Pradesh.

The project covers 355.0 Km to 437.5 Km (aggregate length of 82.5 km) on NH‑16 a key north–south national highway corridor connecting major economic hubs across southern and eastern India.

This is HIL’s first‑ever toll operations contract of this scale, with a total contract value of ₹328.77 crore, awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). 

”At this Plaza we have very, very high volume. This is the largest plaza in all 5 southern states combined,” Mr Jain said. 

“The southern states have shown stellar growth numbers over the past years and I feel this will be the continued trend. Even Gujarat has become a very very important transit point for all the states in that region,” he added.

The company registered a growth of 404% since March 2025, rising from ₹114 crore to ₹575 crore till recently, highlighting rapid scale‑up in the toll operations vertical.

“We are more focused on the profitability. We are trying to pick more profitable, more high growth tenders as opposed to just picking tenders, he said.

In terms of the industry trends, he said “In a growing economy like India infrastructure has become the backbone of development and newer roads and new tollways will be built which is a big opportunity for us.” 

”This trend is supposed to be stable like this for the next coming 10 years,” he added.

Mr Jain said HIL is position itself as a technology focused company and one year contracts are the most optimum contracts for toll because so many new roads are being constructed continuously.

In India toll business has seen rapid growth over the last five years, with annual collections more than doubling from approximately ₹27,504 crore in 2019-20 to over ₹64,800 crore in 2023-24. 

This surge is driven by increased infrastructure development, widespread adoption of FASTag, and rising commercial vehicle movements.

In the first quarter of FY26 (April–June 2025), toll collections surged by 19.6% year-on-year to a record ₹20,681.87 crore, driven by a 4-5% annual rate hike. 

The government aims to increase annual toll collection to ₹1,40,000 crore ($17-18 billion) in the next two to three years by expanding the national highway network and adopting advanced technologies like satellite-based tolling (multi-lane free flow) according to industry officials.