Gautam Adani promises to invest Rs 49,000 crore in Gujarat over 5 years
Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani announced investment of Rs 49,000 crore in Gujarat for expansion of port capacity as well as foraying into water and cement businesses over the next five years. Adani Group will set up a 10 million tonnes cement clinker plant at an investment of Rs 5,500 crore and another Rs 2,000 crore in a desalination plant in Gujarat, he said at the 8th Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit here. Adani Enterprises has already incorporate a new company, Adani Cementation (ACL), which will carry on the cement business. “In the past 5 years, we have invested Rs 48,000 crore in Gujarat,” Adani said. Adani Ports, India’s largest private port and logistics company, in the next five years will invest Rs 16,700 crore to expand capacity of all its Gujarat ports at Mundra, Dahej, Hazira and Ajira and Tuna, he said. Adani said the group is also accelerating its investment in renewable space in Gujarat. “In the year 2021, our new investments in solar as well as wind development will exceed Rs 23,000 crore,” he added. In addition to infrastructure business, the Adani Group is also making significant investment in expanding its agri footprint. “Adani Wilmar is India’s largest edible oil business and recognised as undisputed market leader that sells under brand name Fortune,” he said, adding the group will invest Rs 1,200 crore in expanding edible oil manufacturing capacity at Mundra and Ajira. The group currently operates the world’s single largest edible oil refinery of 3400 tonnes per day capacity at Mundra. “We are now doubling our manufacturing capacity in Gujarat. This expansion will see us making combined investment of Rs 1,200 crore across Mundra and Ajira,” he said. Adani said as part of its integrated infrastructure business model, two new businesses – water and cement – will see new investment. “We will be investing Rs 2,000 crore in setting up series of desalination plant across the state. Also, we are building a 10 million tonnes grassroot cement clinker plant at an investment of Rs 5,500 crore at Mundra,” he said. “All this will further make Mundra most integrated infrastructure complex of the world.” The Summit, he said, has strategically positioned India as a key destination for international investments. He said that as a proud Indian and a proud Gujarati, he assures full support to the state from the Adani Group. “Let me summarise by saying that over the next 5 years we will invest Rs 49,000 crore in the state of Gujarat and will create direct and indirect job opportunity for 25,000 people,” he said. Jayon Brown Jersey
Cabinet note soon to make up for national highways operators’ toll loss
The road transport and highways ministry will soon move a cabinet note to compensate highway operators for the loss incurred due to suspension of toll collection following the government’s decision to demonetise old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The government had directed toll operators not to collect user fee from the afternoon of November 9 till the midnight of December 2. This was done to ease the movement of vehicles on highways as lack of legally valid cash after the demonetisation was leading to long queues at toll booths. “We will be compensating highway operators for their loss. We are soon going to move a cabinet note for the same,” road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari told ET. National highway operators have pegged their losses at over Rs 1,000 crore due to the suspension of toll collection. “A decision is likely to come soon on the matter. The cabinet note is already under preparation,” Gadkari said. The government is also considering extending the toll collection period of the operators in their contract. But highway operators say they need immediate relief. Cabinet note soon to make up for national highways operators’ toll lossCabinet note soon to make up for national highways operators’ toll loss – Image“The move to extend the toll period does not mitigate the pain of road developers. The compensation in cash would be a welcome move,” said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman at Feedback Infra. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has also proposed an immediate relief for toll operators and said their interest cost along with the operations and maintenance costs should also be compensated. According to a senior ministry official, private toll operators for all BOT roads have already started submitting their claims for compensation. Gadkari said that of the total number of toll transactions on national highways, almost 20% have moved to the digital payment method. “There has been a huge increase in the number of transactions through the digital mode. We expect it to touch 30% of the total toll collection in the coming months,” he said. According to the ministry, over two lakh RFID toll cards have been sold since the November 8 demonetisation announcement. Trevor Plouffe Jersey
Infrastructure: Maharashtra plans 10,000 km of road projects under HAM model
With the newly-introduced hybrid annuity model (HAM) slowly becoming popular at the Centre, states too are beginning to adopt the model. Maharashtra’s public works department (PWD) is planning to award about 10,000 km of projects in the next six months. “We have recently come to a decision that these will all be awarded under the hybrid annuity model,” Ashish Singh, principal secretary, PWD, told FE. In the first eight months of FY17, 42% projects, or 1,085 km, have been awarded under the HAM model. Around 45%, or 1,181 km, have been awarded under EPC and just 13%, or 332 km, have been awarded under BOT. In fact, of a total of 6,631 km, the NHAI is targeting to award almost half, or 3,137.54 km, under the HAM route, with the remaining shared between EPC and BOT projects. In the last financial year (2015-16), 72 % of the total projects, or 3,149 km, awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was under the EPC model, 20% (873 km) was under the BOT model and 8% (345 km) was under the newly-introduced hybrid annuity model. Not all infra players want to participate in HAM projects. L&T has decided to adopt an asset-light strategy, as have IRB Infrastructure, ITD Cementation, J Kumar Infraprojects and KNR Constructions. However, a new set of more aggressive road developers such as Dilip Buildcon, MEP Infrastructure, Ashoka Buildcon and others are willing to participate in HAM projects. “Banks are not willing to fund BOT projects nowadays because revenue projections given by developers earlier have mostly failed. Fewer BOT projects have been awarded because there is little appetite for them,” Rohan Suryavanshi, director, strategy and planning, Dilip Buildcon, said. “Only in cases where there is some confidence in the company, banks advance funds. We will take a call on bidding for more HAM projects depending on our balance sheet as we must remain financially sound,” he added. Sapna Seth, associate director, Singhi Advisors, said, “More than the model, it is to do with the financial soundness and working capital which is seeing the emergence of new players for bidding.” According to Alok Deora, an analyst with IIFL Wealth, the new hybrid road projects have helped to reduce the intense competition in BOT and EPC projects. “Some of the BOT and EPC players have stayed focused on their business models. However, as the number of kilometres awarded is strong, there are enough jobs for players in each segment,” he said. Kawann Short Authentic Jersey
Projects in road, shipping sector to cross over Rs 6 lakh crore by March
The government on Thursday exuded confidence that in value terms, projects in the road and shipping sector would cross over Rs 6 lakh crore by the end of March. The government also expressed hope that it would meet its highway construction target of 15,000 km for the current fiscal. “In the road and shipping sector, we have already allotted work of around Rs. 4,60,000 crore. By March-end, we will definitely cross Rs. 6 lakh crore. We will try to do more than this,” Minister for Road and Surface Transportation Nitin Gadkari told reporters here. “Till March this year, we would allot work (for highways construction) for 15,000 km,” the minister said. The minister further said that the government was slowly moving toward that target of building 40-41 km of highways per day. He further said that before BJP goverment came to power the condition of the infrastructure sector was very critical but in the last two-and-a-half year the Centre has accorded highest priority to the development of infrastructure. “Before our government came to power, around 403 road projects totalling 3.85 crore had almost become non-performing assets,” the minister said. At present, the condition of the infrastructure is very good and the banks which earlier not comfortable is now participating well. In a bid to decongest traffic in the country, the government has decided to increase the length of national highways from 96,000 km, at present, to two lakh km, he said. “In this 2 lakh km, we have already reached around 1.7 lakh km,” the minister added. Ethan Pocic Womens Jersey
Setback for Nitin Gadkari, highway building at just 30% of target
Just 30% of the highway construction target for 2016-17 was achieved in the first nine months of the year, reports Surya Sarathi Ray in New Delhi. When it comes to award of new projects, the accomplishment during April-December was even lower at 27% of the yearly target. That means that pace of highway construction was 17 km a day, a far cry form the 41 km-per-day goal set by the ministry of road transport and highways. Clearly, with private investments (read BOT projects) not gathering steam, the government’s efforts to push activity in the sector with the use of its own funds (EPC projects) have brought only moderate results. The construction and award of highways in April-December this year was higher than a year ago by 16% and 7%, respectively, (see chart).With the end of the monsoon, the pace of construction is set to gather momentum in the remaining months, ministry sources said. Admitting that things are far behind the schedule, the sources said at best 10,000-km new highways, two-thirds of the target, could be built this year. New projects awards were unlikely to cross 15,000 km, against the targeted 25,000 km, they said. Rob Kelley Authentic Jersey
Japan ready to associate in development of Chennai and Varanasi
Japan has decided to associate itself with India in developing Chennai, Ahmedabad and Varanasi as smart cities. During a meeting of Japanese Ambassador to India Kenji Hiramatsu with Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu here today, he said, Japan is “quite interested” in urban development initiatives of the government and decided to be a partner, an official release said. Responding to Naidu’s observation about the need for speedy action, the Japanese envoy said “We would like to match the action oriented approach of the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” Meanwhile, British High Commissioner Dominic Asquith also met Naidu and discussed converting into action the MoU signed between the two countries on cooperation in urban development sector. The MoU was signed during the recent visit of British Prime Minister Theresa May to India. Asquith said institutionalising “Government to Government cooperation” for smart city development has huge potential. So far, various countries have come forward to be associated with development of 15 smart cities. These include United States Trade Development Agency (USTDA) for Visakhapatnam, Ajmer and Allahabad, UK for Pune, Amaravati and Indore, France for Chandigarh, Puducherry and Nagpur and Germany for Bhubaneswar, Coimbattore and Kochi. Deonte Thompson Authentic Jersey
States to be judged on their performance in providing logistical support to companies
The government is bringing back a scheme to help states build their export infrastructure by providing financial support. The proposed Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (Ties) will supplement states’ efforts to create export infrastructure. “We are devising means to fund states’ infrastructure requirements for trade,” said commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the second meeting of the Council for Trade Development and Promotion here on Thursday. The government had done away with a similar scheme called the Assistance to States for Infrastructure Development of Exports (Aside) in 2015. The minister said that 17 states have aligned their export strategies ith the Centre’s foreign trade policy. The commerce department, along with others, will also map the export potential of various states. Logistics rankings In addition to annual ease of doing business ranking of states, the industry department will now rank them on their performance in providing logistical support to companies. The exercise will begin this year and aims to give potential investors an idea of what to expect from a state in terms of logistics when they take their investment decisions. “We will rank states on their logistics readiness. There can be little progress on trade facilitation unless states are prepared with plans to manage logistics well, create a logistics hub and have trained manpower to handle it,” Sitharaman said. The ranking will be based on the actual performance and not merely on the presence of logistics in a state. It will also be based on public feedback. GST refunds On commerce ministry’s request to keep out of the goods and services tax ambit the imports of capital goods used as input for exports, Sitharaman said the finance ministry has assured that 90 per cent of the refunds made for claims under such schemes would be made within a week’s time and interest would be paid in case of delays. The commerce ministry had on January 3 sought tax exemptions for import of raw material under the Advance Authorisation Scheme and import of capital goods under Export Promotion Capital Goods authorisation scheme. It had requested an outright initial exemption for exporters rather than making them pay taxes first and then seek refunds, as refunds usually take six to eight months. James White Jersey
Green panel clears ToR for Rs 224 cr road project in Karnataka
To improve road connectivity, an expert panel of the Union Environment Ministry has cleared the terms of reference (ToR) for the Rs 224 crore state highway upgradation project from Kollegal in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district to Tamil Nadu border. State-run implementing agency Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project (KSHIP) has proposed improvement of 95 km length of state highway-79 from Hanur to Tamil Nadu border, including connectivity from Palar to Hoganakkal falls. The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Environment Ministry recently examined the Karnataka government’s proposal. “The Committee, after detailed deliberations, recommended the proposal for grant of ToRs for the said road project and for preparation of EIA/EMP reports after public consultation,” a senior government official said. ToRs are guidelines for conducting environmental impact assessment (EIA) studies of projects, based on which EAC recommends or rejects environment clearances to the project. After EAC’s recommendation, the Environment Ministry grants or rejects green clearance to a project. As per the proposal, the KSHIP has reduced total length of the project road from 119 km to 95 km. Out of it, 81.78 km of road stretch passes via two wildlife sanctuaries–Malai Mahadeshwara and Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. The cost of the proposed road project is estimated to be Rs 224 crore. The state government has informed the EAC that it wants to first develop existing road from Kollegal to Hannur covering a length of 24 km on a priority basis because of public pressure for development of this stretch which is located outside the forest and wildlife sanctuary area. Jason Williams Jersey
Road Ministry seeks Rs 90,904 crore for 2017-18
Unhappy over the proposed reduction in budget outlay for 2017-18, the Road Ministry has requested the Finance Ministry to allocate Rs 90,904 crore to help complete ongoing highway projects in time and compensate for the toll revenue losses following demonetisation. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said it needs higher allocation to carry forward the ongoing work and also to compensate concessionaires who lost revenue because of withdrawal of tolling following the demonetisation, a source told PTI. The Road Ministry conveyed it to the Finance Ministry that “as against our proposal of Rs 90,904 crore for Budget Estimate (BE) 2017-18, the indicated outlay for BE 2017-18 is only Rs 58,362 crore…The proposed reduction in allocation of national highways (NH) sector would cause a major setback in the progress of ongoing projects and in the achievement of targets,” the source added. The outlay for Revised Estimate (RE) 2016-17 is proposed to be reduced from BE 2016-17 outlay of Rs 57,976 crore to Rs 52,447 crore as against the proposal of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) of Rs 62,489 crore, the source said. “As MoRTH have substantial liabilities and 36,500 Km of NH projects costing more than Rs 3 lakh crore are in progress, the road ministry requested the Finance Ministry to restore its BE 2016-17 outlay of Rs 57,976 crore at RE 2016-17 stage so that payments for ongoing works and committed liabilities are not delayed,” he said. The Road Ministry said that in the absence of assured funding, it would not be possible to properly plan, prepare and award NH projects, involving a gestation period of 3 to 5 years. Therefore, MoRTH requested that in addition to restoring the RE 2016-17 outlay to Rs 57,976 crore, the full outlay as proposed should be provided for BE 2017-18, the source said. Thomas Morstead Jersey
Demonetisation impact: Investment proposals fall to decadal low
The effects of demonetisation of large currency notes will have longer-lasting effects than initially expected, the think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in a recent note. According to data on its website, new investment proposals by India Inc fell to low of Rs 1,25,000 crore in the just-concluded December 2016 quarter, compared to the average Rs 2,36,000 crore worth of new investments seen per quarter in the preceding nine quarters of the Modi government. From October 1 to November 8, 2016 (that day the demonetisation decision was enforced), 227 new investment proposals worth Rs 81,800 crore were announced. In comparison, only 177 investment proposals worth Rs 43,700 crore were made between November 9 and December 31, 2016, slowing the pace of new proposals considerably. In fact, the total number of new project proposals of 404 for the quarter is the lowest in over a decade. Mahesh Vyas, CEO, CMIE, told BusinessLine that he expects the lingering effects of demonetisation to have a negative impact in new investment proposals at least till the June 2017 quarter. “Entrepreneurs will announce fewer manufacturing projects when they expect consumption of their end-products to be affected, be it biscuits, shoes, or even of films. Industry is already running at only about 70 per cent capacity utilisation, so entrepreneurs will wait even longer before spending on expanding capacity.” New investments worth Rs 2,097 crore were announced, on an average, per day during the 39 pre-demonetisation days from October 1 through November 8. This average dropped sharply by 61 per cent to Rs 824 crore during the 53 days in the post-demonetisation period. The number of projects announced per day dropped from six to three by a similar comparison. Vyas expects consumption to take even longer to recover. He said, “When people start spending less, it becomes habit-forming and it will take a while before they can break out of the cycle.” CMIE’s data on investment proposals covers the spectrum of listed and unlisted companies, based on their disclosures to stock exchanges, government bodies and other public information. The think-tank’s extensive database on the economy extends to over two decades. According to this data, the March 2009 quarter saw the highest value of investment proposals – at Rs 8,21,564 crore – while the most number of projects were announced in the March 2011 quarter, a total of 1,676. CMIE also found that the implementation of projects that collectively envisaged investments worth Rs 77,700 crore was stalled during the December 2016 quarter. “This is 38 per cent higher than the value of projects stalled during the preceding (September 2016) quarter,” a note on the think-tank’s website said. “It is also more than 10 per cent higher than the average value of projects getting stalled midway through their implementation during the past year.” Separately, CMIE estimated that demonetisation has led to lost wages of about Rs 15,000 crore as workers are forced to spend their time instead waiting in queues to exchange old currency notes for new ones. Fred VanVleet Womens Jersey