29 May, 2018
Indian Railway set to Revamp 68 Stations
The Indian Railways has taken up the decision to re-engineer and revamp 68 stations under its own EPC( Engineering, Procurement and Construction) model after having received a mild response from private investors.
The Rail Ministry has conveyed to all its zones to start the work immediately and complete the project within a year. Major stations such as Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Shimla and Chennai are supposed to be revamped under this plan among others and would receive latest and state of the art amenities such as elevators, shopping complexes, announcement systems, platforms, etc. There is a projected budget of Rs 3000 – Rs 4000 crore which is yet to be calculated and rectified by the Rail Ministry , investments by private bodies are no longer being entertained due to the ordered commencement of the plan.
Apart from the aforementioned stations, the NBCC (National Building Construction Corporation) is undertaking redevelopment of 10 stations including Lucknow on its own. The corporation is funding the project by leasing out space in station complex to private companies.
Krishnaptanam Port to Augment Capacity to Meet High Traffic
Krishnapatnam Port Company, India’s second-largest private port that reported strong growth in cargo and containers business last fiscal year, is augmenting infrastructure to meet traffic from expanding intra-Asia trade.
The port has planned a total investment of $3 billion, of which $1.23 billion has already been invested for development till date with the second phase of expansion underway, which is nearing completion. The port will build three-four more berths for Ro-Ro (roll-on, roll-off ships that transport automobiles), liquid cargo and LNG/LPG over the next year or two, adding to the existing 11.
The port has 80 million tonnes of cargo capacity. Last fiscal year, it handled 45 million tonnes and this year, it expects the business to reach 55 million tonnes. The container terminal capacity will soon reach 1.5 million TEUs and the port hopes to report business of around 7 lakh TEUs this fiscal year.
Construction of Jewar International Airport to begin in 2019
The construction for the Jewar International Airport in Greater Noida will begin before the 2019 general elections with the Uttar Pradesh government having approved the setting up of a joint venture company to acquire 1,441 hectare of land for the project at a cost of nearly Rs 4,000 crore.
Further, an order issued by the UP government recently , a joint venture company will be empowered to obtain the said land by either of the two procedures as required — by land acquisition through the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, or directly by mutual agreements with the land owners.
The latter procedure is quicker but the government has to pay more. The JV company will have 37.5% shareholding of the UP government, a similar shareholding of the Noida Development Authority and 12.5% each for the for Greater Noida Development Authority and the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority.
The Rs 4,000 crore cost of land acquisition will therefore have to be borne in the same ratio of roughly Rs 1,500 crore each by the first two entities, and Rs 500 crore each by the two latter ones. The entire project has been divided into four stages of completion.
Private Defence Projects Get MHA Approval
The home ministry has given speedy security clearances to 48 private investments in the defence sector. The increase in the clearance follows streamlining of the security clearance mechanism in May 2015. Approval for small and medium-scale arms production was among the ones that received MHA clearances last year to boost overall domestic manufacturing .
Though big-ticket military hardware investments are cleared by the defence ministry, corporates that received clearance include Reliance and Kalyani groups, which entered into strategic partnership with BAE Systems for production of air defence guns at the just-concluded Def-Expo. The government expects domestic private share in defence budget to go up by 20% in the next four years from the present 5%.
Low-cost Housing Project in Pune Metropolitan Region
The Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) has announced that it will construct 6,415 houses under the affordable housing scheme on a public-private- partnership (PPP) basis in the first phase of the low cost housing project.
Seven private players have been selected to execute the first phase, which is also the state’s first PPP model in affordable housing, said authorities from PMRDA. The deadline to complete all the schemes undertaken by PMRDA is 2020. PMRDA’s target is to construct 50,000 houses by 2020.
The government’s new initiative will see municipalities or authorities tying up with developers to take forward the project where the authorities will help in quicker sanctions and set up a single window system for sanctions and grant of NOCs.
For further information, please contact:
Vineet Aneja, Partner, Clasis Law
vineet.aneja@clasislaw.com
