Orissa to build four major roads through PPP route

Project Monitor News Bureau says "The Orissa government plans to construct four major roads in the state on public-private partnership basis at a cost of over Rs 2,100 crore.The project involves four laning of a 165-km long road between Sambalpur and Rourkela at an estimated cost of Rs 1,340 crore; constructing a 70-km road from Khuntuni to Kuradmal at a cost of Rs 400 crore; building an 18-km road between Joda and Bamberi at a cost of Rs 188 crore; and constructing a 42-km Koira-Lahunipada road with an expenditure of Rs 217 crore."

"The state government has started the preliminary works on the project and will soon appoint two private agencies for consultancy. The World Bank has agreed to bear the consultancy expenditure.
The funds for the project will be arranged after completing detail survey of about 900 acres of land required for all the four roads."

Hard and Soft Infrastructure

I came across this publication which defines Hard and Soft Infrastructure by Deepak Kumar who is an Associate consultant of ICFAI journal of Infrastructure.

He says" Infrastructure sector is divided into hard and soft infrastructure. The hard infrastructure includes roads and bridges, ports, airlines, railway, power,telecom while the soft infrastructure includes education, health, tourism,etc." It also lists out Initiatives of UPA Government- (2004-05) in the field of Infrastructure. This paper gives details about both hard and soft Infrastructure initiatives taken by the govenment.

I wonder how much of this is a true achievement as NHDP, NSEW coridoor are already in a fix cos of increasing cost of the projects and railway projects are also at halt as mentioned in my earlier post.

Bangaluru Airport In a mess

The new Bangalore airport is located some 40 kms away from the city in Devenhalli. The congested roads and the increasing traffic on the roads is making it the least preferred option for the people to travel. although the Airport had all world class facilities, capacity of handling 10 million passenger in a year. It has 50 ckeck in counters and there are no x-ray machines to screen the bags but the public is suffering because of the distance they have to cover on the road to catch a flight.

Passenger end up spending 3-4 hours travelling to and fro to the airport to catch a 1 hour flight. I wonder the land for the proposed airport was decided long back and it dint strike anybody's mind that distance could be a problem. More details are here.

Infrastructure deficit can derail India's growth: Rangarajan

Sluggish infrastructure development could derail India's growth rate and pose serious challenges to development, says C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. The main points which he made are:

1. "If we are to sustain the present growth rate and accelerate it to higher levels, we have to not only invest heavily in infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships but also ensure their timely execution."
2. "Efficient and speedy implementation of projects is critical in the infrastructure area.".
3. Yet, time and cost overruns, poor execution and bureaucratic hurdles have put a severe pressure on existing infrastructure, especially in urban areas. "As a result, our infrastructure facilities and urban amenities are groaning as they are stretched out," Rangarajan said.
4. "We need to invest equally in social infrastructure. The spending in health and education should be efficient as they are a function determining the quality of expenditure than quantum.
5. "The way out is to modernise and diversify the farm sector by improving the forward and backward linkages,"

This is what Rangarajan said. Here is another effort by the government to develop infrastructure by means of developing Inland waterways for transporting goods in wake of the rising fuel prices.

I had pointed earlier here a similar news item wherein they talked about putting the inland waterways in the forefront. Lets see when will it happen.

Bandra skywalk project inaugurated

On 24 June 2008, Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh inaugurated Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority's Bandra skywalk project.

The project built at a cost of Rs.13.63 crore will cover a distance of 1.3 km having five entry/exit points. The skywalk will connect the railway foot over bridges to Kalanagar, passing through Annat Kanekar Marg, DP Road and Nandadeep Garden. It also provides crossing of Western Express Highway, Sio-Dharavi link road.Here is the news clip.

Miscellaneous Links

1. A man from India Blog points out to A Billion Dollar Home and A Billion Dollar Slum.
2. Gammon-Dragados begins work on Mumbai offshore container terminal after the acceptance of Pre Feasibility Report.
3. Railways to invite bids for Pune-Ahmedabad high-speed corridor.
4. Kochi cruise terminal to be developed on BOT basis.

Road projects face further delays on rising input cost

Rising steel and crude oil prices may again delay awarding of road projects under the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP). It explains that rising input costs make the projects unviable for the developers who are then reluctant to take off with the projects. To make it viable if the developer starts charging higher toll rates then the project might not be able to attract the expected traffic which will lead to further delays in the concession period awarded thereby again making it all the more unviable.

I had earlier also hinted at slowing down of the railway projects because of rising steel prices here.

BMC and Monsoons

A man from India Blog lists out the possible reasons for the failure of BMC every year to manage the monsoons and the result is Mumbai drowns. He blames it on Politics, Basic resources not being available to the traffic cops, Subway flooding, Corruption last but not the least Lifestyle of the Mumbai Indians.

Put railways, inland waterways in the driving seat

Dipankar Bose reports in Business Line two crucial issues that India faces, the soaring crude price and urban congestion and the transport sector may have an answer to the problems. He talks about the NESW corridor being developed at huge cost of rs 60000 crores. He argues to say tht roadways should be complemetary and not supplementary to Railways. In practice, however, the opposite is the case. He further says,

"A detailed study by the Planning Commission found that barges of 1,500 tonnes with a load of 75 per cent moved on inland waterways consume 46 per cent of the energy consumed by diesel rail traction and only 7.4 per cent of the energy consumed by diesel trucks.The state of the waterways is certainly better than earlier, but it is still far from satisfactory."

He concludes by saying "Thus, a shift in emphasis away from national highways to the railways and inland waterways for long haul of bulk goods and to the State highways and the district roads for short haul can reduce the nation’s oil import bill and urban congestion. (The author was formerly Senior Economist Assocham, New Delhi and M.N. Dastur & Co. Ltd, Kolkata.)

Government considering various options to start Mumbai trans-harbour link

After Reliance Infrastructure failed to extend the validity of bids for the sea link project between Sewri and Nhava-Sheva, the Maharashtra government is now considering various options like forming an SPV with financial support from the state-run institutions, to go ahead with the project. The state government may form SPV with funding from City & Industrial Development Corporation, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and probably a Japanese bank.

The project will be awarded to Maharashtra State road Development Corporation. The government is also likely to consider the options like inviting fresh bids, close bidding or re-bidding from qualifiers in the final round of bidding - Relaince Infrastructure and Sea King Infrastructure.

Reliance Energy Now Reliance Infrastructure had bagged Mumbai Trans Harbour Link project. Financial bids were opened today for the 25 kilometer six-lane project of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). The company has quoted a concession period of 9 years, 11 months, as compared to 75 years quoted by the only other bidder, a consortium led by IL& FS.