Bihar crosses the PPP bridge -Governance Now

Bihar crosses the PPP bridge

First ever PPP project worth Rs 1400 crore in the road sector

Brajesh Kumar | June 14, 2010

Private investment has finally come to Bihar.

In first ever public private partnership (PPP) initiative worth Rs 1400 crore, a 5.5 km bridge will be built over river Ganga connecting Bakhtiyarpur with Tajpur in the state.

The longstanding jinx on investor confidence in the state was broken on Monday when HES infrastructure, a Hyderabad based company won the bid for the project.

Considering the reluctance of the private players in investing in a state that is going to have assembly elections in few months, it is a major milestone for the Bihar government.

“This was the first PPP project envisaged in the road sector, and its success was critical to the future investment,” Pratyaya Amrit, secretary, road construction department told Governance Now.

Others similar projects worth 5000 crore in the road sector are lined up and the government is hopeful that the success of the first will lead to private in others.

For the Ganga bridge project, eight leading companies had submitted the request for qualification (RSQ), and seven of them had been shortlisted by the RCD. Earlier, such initiatives never crossed the RSQ stage.

The reason for the turnaround has been the much improved law and order situation in the state in the last 4 years. Officials says Nitish Kumar government restored some semblance of governance in the state as a result of which the investments are starting to come.

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