Govt to pump in Rs 1000 crore for upgradation of Guwahati airport
Assam industry minister, Chandra Mohan Patwary said Union civil aviation ministry will pump in Rs 1000 crore for creation of new passenger and cargo terminal at Guwahati airport. Patwary said, “Union civil aviation ministry has inked MOU for regional airlines under which viability gap funding will be done for flights operation in Northeast India.” He added that passenger handling capacity will increase significantly. “We are also creating warehouse facility in the airport.” According to the minister the five day long river festival of Namami Brahmaputra has generated business interest both within and outside the country. He said, “Investors from both India and abroad are keen to invest in Assam. We will make Namami Brahmaputra festival a calendar event following its success.” Bangladesh has accorded necessary clearance for dredging river Brahmaputra from Sadiya in Assam to Chittagong port in Bangladesh. Around Rs 250 crore will spent for dredging on Bangladesh part. Patwary said, “Dredging Corporation of India will do the dredging and silt recovered from the same will be used for highway construction. Detailed project report preparation for dredging of Assam part of Brahmaputra will be prepared soon.” Willie Snead IV Womens Jersey
35 airports don’t have night landing facility in India: Government tells Lok Sabha
As many as 35 functional airports in the country do not have night landing facility, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju said today. Airlines have to apply to the Airports Authority of India to facilitate night landing facility in a particular airport and then process of offering the convenience starts. “There are 47 licenced landing airports in the country while 35 are yet to apply for it,” he said during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha. The Minister said improving the infrastructure, including night landing facility at the airports, was a continuous process and is undertaken by the Airports Authority of India depending upon factors like commercial viability, traffic demand, operational requirements, demand from airlines and technical feasibility. Endorsing BJP member Abhishek Singh’s statement that “airports are not for cattle grazing but for the use by the aircraft”, Raju said the central government was promoting the aviation sector and it has now become fastest growing aviation market in the world. Mitchell Trubisky Authentic Jersey
India plans high speed diesel pipeline to Bangladesh
India plans to build a pipeline to carry high-speed diesel (HSD) to Bangladesh, similar to a project it announced last week to supply fuel to Nepal. A formal proposal on the friendship project could be announced when Bangla Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina meets her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi here on April 8, people in the know said. The cross-border pipeline will run from Siliguri in West Bengal to Parbatipur in northern Bangladesh. Until the project is completed, HSD will be transported from Assam’s Numaligarh Refinery to Bangladesh via rail and one such consignment will be flagged off by the two prime ministers. In fact, supplies to Bangladesh has already begun from Numaligarh Refinery. Recently, it dispatched the first consignment of HSD to Bangladesh – a railway rake containing 2,281 metric tonnes of the fuel chugged off from the refiner’s marketing terminal at Siliguri to the Parbitipur depot of Bangladesh Petroleum Corp (BPC). Each such consignment will travel some 516 kms – 253 km in India and 263 km in Bangladesh – on an existing rail line. Numaligarh Refinery and BPC have signed a sale-purchase agreement which includes a joint initiative for the construction of a 131-km pipeline, with a capacity to carry 1 million metric tonnes a year of fuel products, to Parbatipur from Siliguri. The neighbouring countries are also contemplating building a gas pipeline. State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and BPC are in talks to build the 6,900-km pipeline that is proposed to link Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sitwe in Myanmar with India’s northeastern states. The pipeline project is part of the government’s Hydrocarbon Vision-2030 for the northeastern region. A joint LPG plant is planned at Chittagong from where the gas will be piped to the northeastern region. The project had figured in the talks during Modi’s Dhaka trip in 2015. India last week announced that it will lay pipeline to supply fuel to Nepal and jointly market it in the Himalayan nation. State-run Indian Oil Corporation will help build the pipeline to supply petrol, diesel and cooking gas. Franco Harris Jersey
Essar Power generation up 49 per cent at 11.33 billion units in FY17
Essar Power produced 49 per cent more electricity at 11.33 billion units (BUs) last fiscal ended March 31, as against 7.63 BUs in the previous year. The generation was up 57 per cent for the January-March quarter of 2016-17 at 2.92 BUs compared to 1.86 BUs in the year-ago period, Essar Power said in a statement. It said 165 MW generation capacity has been added by commissioning one unit each at its Paradip and Hazira plants. With the Commissioning of the second 135 MW unit of the 2×135 MW Hazira power plant in Gujarat, the project is now fully commissioned and operating on full load. The second 30 MW unit at the 4×30 MW Paradip power plant in Odisha was also commissioned in the fiscal. With this, half the targetted capacity of 120 MW for the Paradip power plant has been commissioned. In 2016-17, Essar Power’s Mahan plant resumed operations after a gap of 19 months. Operations restarted at the beginning of the financial year and have continued without interruption banking on e-auction coal provided by Coal India Essar Power MP Ltd, which operates the Mahan plant, procured over 3 million tonnes of coal through the e-auction route in 2016-17. Essar Power’s operational capacity in India now stands at 4,755 MW. The company is currently developing the 1,200 MW Tori plant in Jharkhand and the remaining 2×30 MW units in Paradip. Essar Power’s total power generation capacity when these two plants come on stream will be 6,100 MW (including the 85 MW plant that is operational in Algoma, Canada). Essar Power CEO KVB Reddy said: “Almost 80 per cent of our planned capacity of 6,100 MW is now operational with eight out of nine plants up and running. The initiatives of the ministries of Power and Coal in the last fiscal provided a fillip to the sector, helping us restart operations at the Mahan plant.” He said Domestic coal auctions have helped mitigate the issue of coal availability. Reddy said the government should consider reducing interest rates that currently make most power projects financially unviable. “Measures like the RBI’s 5/25 scheme will help optimise power generation costs.” Essar Power Ltd is a private sector power producer with over 20 years of operating track record. It owns power plants in India and Canada with a total planned generation capacity of 6,100 MW, of which 4,840 MW is operational. Of the total operational capacity, 3,240 MW is coal-based, while 1,600 MW is gas-based. The operating plants in India are at Mahan in Madhya Pradesh, Hazira, Salaya & Vadinar in Gujarat and Paradeep in Orissa. A 1,200 MW coal based power plant at Tori in Jharkhand state is under development. Fabian Moreau Womens Jersey
Gadkari keen to achieve 40 km a day road construction target
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari today said that efforts are being made to further improve the road construction target to 40 km a day from the current 23 km per day. The minister said that 8,144 km of roads were constructed last fiscal. His ministry, Gadkari said, on an average has recorded road construction of 23 km a day as against 2 km a day when the UPA government was in power. “I had fixed the target of 40 km per day but I was not able to achieve that but… I am hopeful of achieving this target,” he said while addressing a national conference on the steel sector. The minister further said he intends to complete infrastructure work worth Rs 25 lakh crore in five years. Gadkari said all these initiatives would give a huge boost to the steel and cement sectors. Till March 31, the ministry has already alloted projects worth Rs 5.5 lakh crore in roads and ports sectors, he added. The government has decided to increase the length of national highways from the existing 96,000 km to 2 lakh km. “We have fast-tracked the decision-making process for the projects,” he added. Gadkari said there are also plans to make 11 expressways including Delhi-Katra and Delhi-Jaipur. “We will complete these two projects before August 15,” he said, adding that work on Mumbai-Baroda Expressway would start in three months’ time. Vladislav Namestnikov Womens Jersey
20 road developers exit projects worth Rs 12,327 cr in 2 years
With the relaxation in exit policy norms, nearly 20 road assets worth around Rs 12,327 crore have been monetised during the past 24 months, says a report. Sponsors in around 20 road assets involving a total cost of Rs 12,327 crore have monetised their assets as against around Rs 7,000 crore in the preceding 50 months, says a report by domestic agency Icra. “Asset sales in the road sector have picked up over the last 24 months with the relaxation in exit policy,” it said, adding three out of the 20 of these assets are state road projects and the remaining are national highway projects. Out of the 17 highway projects, 16 were awarded before 2009 and are the direct beneficiaries of the policy decision on relaxation of the exit policy for projects awarded before 2009 in May 2015. In May 2015, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs relaxed the exit policy for projects awarded before 2009, allowing 100 per cent equity divestment by the developers as against 74 per cent earlier. This move not only attracted private equity players who are more comfortable when they own 100 per cent stake in projects, but also enabled the unlocking of additional 26 per cent of the developers’ equity invested in about 5,600 km of national highway projects in the PPP model, Icra said. This can result in freeing up of around Rs 4,500 crore of equity that can support equity contribution towards building 1,500 km of national highway projects in PPP mode. “In about 31 per cent deals, the return to developers is negative, indicating loss on investment. Developers with a weak credit profile are the ones who disposed of their assets at a loss as liquidity took precedence over profit-making for them,” Icra’s K Ravichandran said. He said the projects with highest returns are secondary sale transactions wherein the sponsors are private equity investors. “With the increase in headline inflation and the continued healthy growth in traffic, the toll collections are expected to grow by 10-11 per cent over the next two years. As the valuations have improved following a favourable outlook on toll collections and decline in interest rates, the asset sales are expected to gather further momentum,” he added. Brookfield Asset Management of Canada, Canadian Pension Funds, Macquarie Australia, I Squared Capital of the US (Cube Highways), Abertis Infraestructuras of Spain and IDFC Alternatives are the major investors currently looking for assets in the sector, the report said. Global pension funds are also increasingly looking at acquiring road assets and staying invested for the long term, Ravichandran said. M&A opportunities in the road sector are the highest among various infra sub-sectors with around 88 operational national highways projects totalling 7,192 km with a total project cost of Rs 69,327 crore and a median operational track record of four years, Icra said. Bradley McDougald Womens Jersey
Bhel sets up over 45K MW capacity; beats 12th Plan target
State-owned power equipment maker Bhel today said it has added 45,254 MW capacity during the 12th Five Year Plan period (2012-17) beating the targets set for the company. “Renewing thrust on accelerated project execution, Bhel has achieved a capacity addition of 45,274 MW of utility sets during the 12th five year plan, surpassing the Government’s capacity addition target by 9 per cent,” Bhel said in a statement today. The government had set the target of 41,661 MW power generation capacity addition for Bhel. Bhel said it continues to remain the single largest contributor to the country’s installed capacity of utility sets, with a share of 46 per cent in the 12th Plan capacity addition. Its capacity addition was 78 per cent higher than in the 11th Plan (2007-12). During 2016-17, Bhel has achieved a capacity addition of 6,317 MW in the utility segment, which is nearly four times of the next highest achievement by any other manufacturer. Besides, 1,422 MW of industrial sets and 78 MW of overseas sets have also been commissioned by Bhel during the year, in addition to 61 MWp of Solar Power Plants, including 50 MWp at Ananthapur in Andhra Pradesh. With the commissioning of 4 Roof Top Solar Plants, totalling to 403 kWp, during the year, Bhel has enhanced its presence in this emerging segment as well. With this, a total of 8,538 MW has been synchronised/commissioned in the year. The company added another feather in its cap by foraying into the field of power generation as a co-developer, with the start of commercial operation of the first unit of its 2×800 MW project at Yeramarus, Karnataka. Montravius Adams Jersey
UDAY suggests power tariff hike only by 2019
The Union Power Ministry’s UDAY scheme which Kerala has finally joined does not anticipate any increase in power tariffs during 2017 or 2018. UDAY – short for Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) – expects a five-per cent hike in tariffs only in 2019, according to the tripartite agreement signed by the Power Ministry, Kerala government and the KSEB. The Central scheme recommends a hike only by 2019 at a time when domestic tariffs in the state are set to go up by an average 30 paise per unit this month. UDAY is a debt-relief scheme designed to bail out loss-making power distribution companies, but the state government had dithered in signing up as it would have to take over the KSEB’s debts. Although the agreement was signed in early March, it has not been publicised yet. In suo motu determining tariff revision, the state electricity regulatory commission had found a revenue surplus of Rs 740 crore for the KSEB during 2017-18, but ‘truing up’ its finances for 2011-12 and 2012-13, the commission finally concluded there was a revenue gap, and hence, the need for a revision. However, under UDAY, the past debts of state-run utilities have to be taken over by the government. UDAY lists out certain duties for Central and state governments and the KSEB. The state government has to review the KSEB’s performance every month. It has to ensure banks and financial institutions do ‘’not advance short-term debt to the KSEB for financing losses.’’ Outstanding power bill dues from state government departments are to paid up by March 31, 2019. The government will also improve the efficiency of KSEB’s power generation units. The KSEB must slash technical and commercial losses in power distribution to 11 per cent by 2019. It should launch a ‘name and shame’ campaign to check power theft, introduce proper electricity metering including smart metering, energy audits and ensure electrification of all households by 2017. It should also file tariff petitions on time before the commission. On its part, the Centre will facilitate coal linkages for the state. It will also take steps to quickly complete the construction of inter-state transmission lines. The tripartite agreement was signed by joint secretary Arun Kumar Verma on behalf of the Power Ministry, Additional Chief Secretary Paul Antony on behalf of the state government and KSEB CMD K Elangovan. On paper UDAY is optional, but the Centre had set a condition which said states which fail to meet ‘operational milestones’ would lose claim on grants provided under Central schemes for improving power supply in urban and rural areas. Derek Carrier Womens Jersey
India’s solar energy capacity expanded by record 5,525 MW
India’s solar energy capacity has expanded by a record 5,525.98 MW in 2016-17, according to the latest figures provided by the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE). In comparison, India had added 3,010 MW of solar capacity in 2015-16, which shows that growth nearly doubled over the past year. Cumulative solar capacity currently stands at 12,288.83 MW, against 6,762.85 MW at the end of March 2016. Officials said the ministry has strived hard to expand solar power generation as the power, coal, renewable energy and mines minister Piyush Goyal has set such ambitious targets that the growth is impressive even if it falls short of the target. The cumulative target the MNRE had set earlier was 17,000 MW by the end of 2016-17. “By the end of next year, our minister has committed to a cumulative target of 20,000 MW,” said Santosh Vaidya, joint secretary at MNRE. “This would mean adding another 7,750 MW in 2017-18. Once we do so, we will have reached the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) target two years in advance.” The JNNSM had initially set a target of 20,000 MW of solar capacity by 2020. However, that was scaled upwards by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he took over in 2014, raising it to 100,000 MW of solar power by 2022. Among the states, Andhra Pradesh added the maximum solar capacity in 2016-17 (1,294.26 MW), followed by Karnataka (882.38 MW) and Telangana (759.13 MW). Other major additions were in Rajasthan (543 MW), Tamil Nadu (630.01 MW), Punjab (388 MW), Uttar Pradesh (193.24 MW) and Uttarakhand (192.35 MW). With this year’s additions, Andhra Pradesh now leads in cumulative solar capacity among states (1,867.23 MW) displacing Rajasthan (1,812.93 MW), which had been No. 1for the past three years. Gujarat, which topped in solar generation for many years, is now at No. 4 with 1,249.37 MW, while Telangana with 1,286.98 MW is No. 3. As in previous years, many projects were commissioned just in time to beat the year-end deadline. Of the 5,526 MW added, only 2,803.77 MW had been commissioned till February end, but it was followed by a spurt of more than 2,700 MW in March 2017. “These projects were ready and were only awaiting their synchronization with the grid or state approval or signing of the power purchase agreement,” said Vaidya. Given the falling solar tariffs, use of solar energy is expected to keep increasing. “We have seen how low tariffs have fallen at bids such as the one at the Rewa Solar Park,” said Vaidya. The winning tariff at the last auction conducted for projects at the Rewa Park was Rs 2.97 per kwH for the first year, followed by small increases in subsequent years, well below the earlier benchmark price of Rs 4 per kwH for solar power. “Renewable energy can be an energy alternative now and states can go beyond fulfilling their renewable power obligations (RPOs),” Vaidya added. However, effective scheduling and forecasting for intra-state transmission of solar power is necessary to achieve future targets successfully. Bryan Bulaga Jersey
Gajendra Singh is GAIL’s new marketing director
Gajendra Singh on Wednesday took over as director (marketing) of state-run GAIL, a key responsibility at a time when the government is aiming to promote gas-based economy. He will be responsible for sourcing gas from international and domestic suppliers for marketing in the country, ensure capacity utilisation of pipeline infrastructure and expanding the pipeline network. Singh has 32 years of experience the oil and gas industry and has been involved in the execution of several prestigious projects of GAIL, including the Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur pipeline. He was executive director (marketing) before his elevation. Nathan MacKinnon Womens Jersey