Exit route provided in BOT projects to boost infra activities

National highways authority of India to intervene to complete stalled projects

GN Bureau | May 13, 2015


#cabinet   #BOT   #build operate and transfer   #National Highways Authority of India  

With the government looking to award 10,000 km of highways in the current fiscal the cabinet on Wednesday approved 100 percent equity divestment after two years of construction completion for all BOT (build operate and transfer) projects.

In order to provide a renewed thrust to the highway sector and to bring the private sector back on board, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, has approved two major policy initiatives aimed at improving the availability of equity in the market. The CCEA also authorized the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to intervene in languishing projects suffering from lack of funds. This will facilitate one time fund infusion to revive and complete languishing BOT Projects

The CCEA has approved a comprehensive Exit Policy framework that permits concessionaires/developers to divest 100 percent equity, two years after completion of construction.

This step has been taken bring in more parties into infrastructure building projects. During the last few years, PPP (public private participation) projects have not been able to attract bids due to lack of availability of equity with the qualified bidders.  The exit policy is a sort of incentive and it will unlock  equity from completed projects making capital potentially available for investment into new projects. This decision will also harmonise conditions uniformly across all concessions signed prior to 2009 with the policy framework for post 2009 contracts which permit divestment of equity upto 100 percent, two years after completion of construction.

AS per estimate there are 80 such BOT projects awarded prior to 2009 that have been completed and the locked in equity in these projects works out to approximately Rs. 4500 crore. Once this is unlocked and is re-invested in new projects this could support 1500 kms of new highways on PPP mode, thus help in reviving the response to BOT (T) projects.

Meanwhile, out of the ongoing 240 PPP Projects, some are languishing due to delays on account of land acquisition, grant of statutory clearances, local issues and shortage of construction materials etc.  In conjunction with several other measures being taken to revive such stalled projects, CCEA on Wednesday approved a special intervention for the projects that are in the advanced stage of completion but are stuck due to either lack of additional equity or lender’s inability to disburse further.

The NHAI has been authorized to provide funds to such projects from within its overall budget/corpus on a loan basis at a pre-determined rate of return. This loan is to be recovered along with interest as the first charge from the toll receipts immediately after completion of construction.

NHAI has been directed to develop a robust mechanism to determine eligibility of the project as also the extent of funds required to complete projects, in time-bound manner. It is expected that about 16 such projects languishing in various part of the country where public is facing difficulty on account of incomplete works will benefit from this decision. This will also add momentum to the overall growth of the highways sector in India which is already on the path of revival.

Comments

 

Other News

GST revenue in May clocks 12% y-o-y growth

The gross Good & Services Tax (GST) revenue collected in the month of May, 2023 is ₹1,57,090 crore of which CGST is ₹28,411 crore, SGST is ₹35,828 crore, IGST is ₹81,363 crore (including ₹41,772 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹11,489 crore (including ₹1,057 crore collecte

Need local solutions to climate change: P Velrasu of BMC

Climate change rising temperature and sea levels are posing new risks for coastal cities. With population growth rate of 1%- 2% in India every year, Mumbai too is growing and is population will double from 20 million to 40 million in the coming years. The city is also at the risk of rising sea level. It ne

Civil Services 2022 Top 20 felicitated

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space and MoS Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday interacted with and felicitated the first 20 All India Toppers of IAS/ Civil Services Exam 20

Boost to offshore wind energy projects

In a major decision, the Government has decided to grant waiver of ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen / Gree

Duty of stakeholders to provide cost effective, alternate energy fuels: Gadkari

Urging use of alternative and cost effective fuels to reduce pollution caused by vehicles, union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said finding cost-effective fuels is the need of the hour and underlined that use of fuels like bio-CNG and green hydrogen help in protecting the e

Record production of rice, wheat, and sugarcane estimated

The foodgrain production of 3305.34 lakh tonnes is estimated in the current agricultural year 2022-23 – higher by 149.18 LMT as compared to the previous year, according to the Third Advance Estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter