The promise of peace in the Middle East is weaving its way past the Strait of Hormuz. Donald Trump’s self-certified ‘great deal’ is yet to arrive, even if piece by piece. That thought hasn’t detained the markets, which have brushed aside words, events and doubts. Stock indices are up, bond yields are down and most importantly crude oil prices have tumbled. Feel-good clouds are ephemeral, transient by definition. Mood is not capital. Sentiments are a sugar rush – they spike, flatline and reverse, often violently when expectations are not met.
India is the fastest-growing large economy, but the fundamentals are not all rosy. Yes, the Rupee is hanging in there – thanks to the RBI’s emergency measures. That said, forecasts suggest growth is lower and inflation is higher, FIIs are unloading equity, and net FDI is spluttering. It is known that markets are focused on the immediate and underestimate the long term. Energy prices will be volatile – even if supply lines are unclogged, restoration of gas and oil output to pre-war levels could take two years, as per the IEA.
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The global context is not entirely rosy, even though markets are buoyant. Availability of capital will be critical as the world migrates from a context of demand deficit to supply insufficiency – the shift ranges from funding AI and AI adjacent capex to reshoring of manufacturing to rebuilding energy grids. Global capital expenditure on energy alone is expected to top $ 3.4 trillion in 2026. Add the capex of AI giants estimated at $ 700 billion and other sectors for the math on the need for capital.
The global economy is moving into a higher inflation and higher for longer interest rates regime. Debt and deficits are higher. Central banks are signalling rate hikes – the Bank of Japan and ECB have already hiked rates. The quantum shift is reflected in Nvidia’s borrowing programme. It is the world’s most valued company with over $ 80.5 billion in cash in hand. Yet it is in the market for raising $ 25 billion in debt. As demand for capital rises, so will the cost of money.
India needs a plan for what Keynes called the ‘economic consequences of peace’. Recent months show India’s dependence on imported energy has long-term implications. The Indian economy will need fuel and capital to fuel its economy. David Landes observes in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations ‘The world has never been a level playing field’. The differentiator between a stagnant and dynamic economy is not the mere possession of resources but the ability to deploy them.
The economy needs a transformative, orbital move – one large enough to convert a sentiment shift into a structural one, before the window of optimism blinks. India must corral, value and monetise, dollarise public assets. India has the resources. India has the moment. What India has consistently lacked is the institutional boldness to go big.
That gap between what India’s sovereign assets are worth and what they currently earn is central to India’s location in the low-middle income bracket. The saga is spelt out by NHAI, AAI, CONCOR, ISRO’s commercial arm, India Post, Indian Railways Freight, and NABARD, which could well be worth around $ 300 billion. Here are a few assets worth monetising – valuations are indicative and derived — listing as ADR on NYSE.
CONCOR – India’s dominant intermodal logistics platform CONCOR operates 66 terminals, 54,619 containers, 17,967 wagons, with 4.5M sq ft warehouse space, connecting 13 gateway ports. The corporation moved over 5.58 million TEUs. It is listed domestically at $ 4 billion. It merits a global listing alongside India’s supply-chain narrative. As the roadshow by the company showed, there is investor appetite. The missing part is the ADR structure.
NHAI – The world’s second-largest road network. 1,46,560 km. With 122 million FASTag accounts, collections are at Rs 82,900 crore in FY26. GNSS satellite tolling in rollout. Enterprise value: around $ 55 billion. The NHAI InvIT is rated AAA, already trades domestically and signals institutional appetite. A NYSE ADR of the parent taps patient, long-duration infrastructure capital that the RBI is attempting, through the laborious bond market route.
AAI – Owns 136 airports, joint venture partner in seven privately run airports, owner of over 55000 acres of land, including freehold land under India’s six busiest airports. Earns $1.30 per passenger in non-aeronautical revenue against a global benchmark of $7-15. Holds an unassailable air navigation monopoly over every aircraft in Indian airspace. As the largest player, it could command a valuation of around $ 18 billion by some estimates.
India Post – India Post is effectively India’s biggest bank, the largest logistics and the largest customer base. 1,62,000 physical post offices, a Payments Bank, profitable, holds over Rs 15 lakh crore of savings, unparalleled last-mile reach. A Japan Post-style corporatisation could list at a $7-9 billion base case.
IR Freight Corporation – It does not exist currently, but it should, hived off from the Indian Railways. It clocked Rs 1.7 trillion in revenues in FY26, a record 1,670 million tonnes. The Dedicated Freight Corridors, fully commissioned in March 2026, handle 13 per cent of total rail freight on 4 per cent of the network. Freed from passenger cross-subsidy and priced at Union Pacific-comparable margins, the corporation would be valued somewhere between $ 56 billion and $ 90 billion at commercial parity.
NABARD – A $107 billion balance sheet growing at 14 per cent. India’s largest agricultural development finance institution. In an era of ESG capital seeking credible emerging-market deployment, a listed NABARD attracts green bond funds, climate finance vehicles, and multilateral co-investors that no other entity in this portfolio would reach. Base-case valuation: $18-22 billion.
NSIL / ISRO – India’s pride, ISRO, has a glorious record of accomplishments. Its capacity for frugal cost space missions – the Mars mission cost less than what it cost to make Gravity – makes it an outlier globally. Commercial revenues of $400 million are growing at 24 per cent annually on the world’s most cost-competitive launch platform. It may not achieve SpaceX’s valuation, but ISRO is in the space and deserves corporatisation and monetisation.
The questions will be predictable. Each of the entities carries listing friction – legal form, mandate, electoral arithmetic and confusion about public purpose. To be fair, they are not trivial objections and were raised before the listing of Life Insurance Corporation. This columnist, who had suggested it first, recalls the list of lament. Fact is, LIC is not privatised, it prices insurance, the government retains control, collected over Rs 20,000 crore, and the social contract is intact.
It is true that there is friction and a minefield of politico legal landscape to traverse. Equally, there is no denying the need to monetise sovereign wealth either. The return of capital will both fuel the growth of the entities and also fund India’s need to build capacity. There is a way to reduce friction, enhance efficiencies, and achieve monetisation.
Amrit Kaal Fund: India can set up a sovereign wealth fund – structurally on the lines of Singapore’s GIC, or Norway’s Norges Bank or a hybrid model. The vehicle, which could be called Amrit Kaal Fund, can host public assets – listed, corporatised and still under departments. For instance, the market cap of India’s listed PSUs is Rs 37.98 lakh crore. The government’s holding in a majority of PSEs is well above 75%. A case can be made for transferring the government’s holdings in excess of 51% – which would be worth around Rs 15 lakh crore — into the fund.
Critically, the shift is not from public to private ownership. It is from fragmented government shareholding to consolidated public ownership. The Amrit Kaal Fund can then be listed on US bourses as an ADR, offered to global investors as a diversified bundle – a sovereign-backed mutual fund giving institutional capital in New York and Singapore a single, liquid, professionally governed vehicle for exposure to the full breadth of India’s state-built asset base.
The buyers are already identified and waiting. CPPIB, GIC, Temasek, ADIA, and CPP Investments – the global sovereign wealth funds and pension managers who have invested in India at scale are the patient, long-duration investors that the Amrit Kaal Fund would attract. They are not whimsical and do not exit on a Federal Reserve rate decision. They are invested in the Indian growth story.
The Amrit Kaal Fund would be the first sovereign wealth vehicle from a major emerging democracy to be listed and accessible to retail and institutional investors on a global exchange – a structural innovation that matches the aspiration of the moment. The public purpose can be defined, oversight placed with the Parliament and proceeds deployed with a clear mandate. The money can be used to retire public debt, compress the fiscal deficit, and free the balance sheet for the next generation of infrastructure investment.
The potential of peace affords India an opportunity — amid restored optimism, recovering markets – to present an idea whose time has come. The moment is now. Go big. Monetise. Dollarise.
(Shankkar Aiyar is a political economy analyst and author)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
