With a target of 1lakh kms, NHAI launches ‘adopt a green highway scheme’
The National highways Authority of India (NHAI) has launched ‘adopt a green highway scheme’ to engage corporates, public sector units and other government departments to undertake greening of national highways under the corporate social responsibility programme. Power Finance Corporation has already committed to greening of an 87 km national highway stretch in Nagpur. NHAI is also in talks with Coal India and several other PSUs to undertake greening of highways. “This will open new vistas for PSUs and corporate houses to utilize their CSR funds for greening of highways and creation of ecological assets,” said Dr. AK Bhattacharya, MD- National Green Highways Mission (NGHM). Government has a target of greening of one lakh kms of national highways. Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari has also earmarked a departmental budget of Rs 5000 crore for the same. With a target of 1lakh kms, NHAI launches ‘adopt a green highway scheme’ Lou Brock Authentic Jersey
4 SEZ developers seek cancellation of their projects
Four Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developers including Broadway Integrated Park and Veritas Infrastructure Development have approached the government to surrender their projects. These applications would be considered by the Board of Approval (BoA) headed by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia on August 12. The BoA is a 19-member inter-ministerial body that deals with SEZ-related matters. “Formal approval has been granted (to these 4 SEZs) by the department of commerce. However, since there is no significant progress made by the developer, the concerned development commissioners have proposed for cancellation of formal approval granted to the developer,” BoA said in its agenda. While the two SEZ projects are in IT/ITeS sector, the other two are in the bio technology area. Broadway Integrated Park and Veritas Infrastructure Development had proposed to set up an IT and biotechnology SEZ respectively in Maharashtra. The other two developers who have approached for cancellation of their projects are Muttha Realty and Saloni Business Park. SEZs are export hubs which contribute about 16 per cent to the country’s total outbound shipments. The Commerce Ministry is taking steps to revive investors interest in these zones. It has asked the Finance Ministry to extend sops like rollback or reduction in the minimum alternate tax. Exports from these zones logged a marginal growth of 0.77 per cent to Rs 4.67 lakh crore in 2015-16. It was Rs 4.63 lakh crore in 2014-15. Al-Farouq Aminu Authentic Jersey
Focus on the Right Infrastructure First: NYC Chief Digital Officer
The newly appointed chief digital officer (CDO) of New York City, Sree Srinivasan, said that while going digital is important, India should first focus on setting up and smoothening out the infrastructure issues that they face. “There are parts of India where people don’t have their own garbage pickup. People are burning garbage and then people ask for 4G (connections). (In that case) you’re focused on the wrong G. Until people are not disposing their own garbage, until people are scavenging on their head, that’s what you should focus on, but everybody is instead focusing on this side,” he told ET. Srinivasan, who has earlier been the CDO at his alma mater Columbia University, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is on an India-wide tour with Twitter, talking about the importance of using social media and different online platforms effectively. His appointment as the CDO of New York City was tweeted by the mayor Bill de Blasio on August 1: “Welcome, @sree, as NYC’s new CDO! And onward to becoming the most tech-friendly, transparent, digitally equitable city in the world.” Srinivasan said his job description was “so clear, so simple and so scary. How do you do all of that?” “Look at the New York City Digital Playbook. It’s our roadmap on how New York City (will do digital) – it doesn’t mean that’s exactly how India needs to be, but somewhere in there is the right way for India to be as well,” he said, when asked what India can learn from the US experience of cities going digital. At a select gathering on Thursday, Srinivasan spoke about how to leverage the best of existing and new social media and online channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. He said that his endeavour is to use mobile as much as possible, and that he has used his laptop only for about 18 minutes since his new appointment as NYC’s CDO. He also set a kind of a new record when he insisted on doing an entire interview on WhatsApp for a news website a week ago. One of his takeaways from the India experience is the way customer service is being done through Twitter and how India is using SMS to get around connectivity issues. Kai Forbath Womens Jersey
Parliament committee ‘partly blames’ NHAI for NPAs in road sector
The Parliament’s Standing Committee on Transport on Tuesday raised several questions on the functioning of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), hinting that some of its policies were the reasons leading to bad debts piling in the road sector. The criticism comes when banks and concessionaires are being blamed by the government for non performing assets, or NPAs. The committee in its report Infrastructure Lending in Road Sector presented to Parliament said that there are several issues with the NHAI like underestimating project costs, bad planning and showing haste in awarding projects to developers. It said that various stake holders complained that the NHAI underestimates the project costs and the concessionaires who bid out a project on L1 basis approaches banks and financial institutions with an inflated project cost for taking loans. L1 refers to lowest bidder. The committee said that it finds strange that there is a big gap between the cost calculated by NHAI and the banks for the same project. While blaming NHAI, the committee also directed the authority to keep a watch over the excess loan amount over the estimated cost obtained by the concessionaire from the bank. “Why the concessionaire has been given a free hand to get the banks’ loan as per their wish?” said the committee headed by Member of Parliament of Trinamool Congress Kanwar Deep Singh. NHAI in its statement on the report said, “We, at NHAI maintain high level of due diligence and follow all the processes which go through various government committees for clearances.” Observing the NPA percentages of various banks in the road sector, the committee observed that for IDBI Bank the NPA percentage is as high as 52% of the total loan disbursed for the road sector and a large portion of this huge amount are NPAs, that too lent to a single concessionaire, Jaypee Infratech Ltd. However, responding to committee’s observation, a senior banker at IDBI requesting anonymity said, “We have about Rs.7,900 crore worth of exposure to the road sector, about 95? of this is fund based. In this, three cases with aggregate loans worth Rs.380 crore are NPAs as of now. The total exposure of the bank in Jaypee Infratech would be around Rs.3,800 crore, which turned into NPA owing to the RBI’s asset quality review (AQR).” He added that it would be unfair to club Jaypee Infratech case in the road sector since the repayment of the loans is dependent on development of 6,700 acres worth land surrounding the road project. “Hence, we have classified the account as a real estate project,” he said. The report pointed out that State Bank of India has lent Rs.19,502 crore, out of which Rs.1,986 crore has turned into NPA and the Parliament committee was worried about the higher percentage of loan becoming NPA. The committee said that the banks should do due diligence while disbursing loans to concessionaires. During the consultation process of the report, the committee was informed that NPAs totalled Rs.2.6 trillion from defaulting infrastructure projects and that by the end of 2015-16, it is estimated to go up to more than Rs.4 trillion. However, the committee appreciated the steps being undertaken by the NHAI in last few months and recommended that model concession agreement of the NHAI may be circulated to all the banks and financial institutions. Bobby Portis Womens Jersey
Government to construct 1,000-km expressway at Rs 16,680 crore
Government will construct 1,000 km of expressways under its flagship road building programme NHDP at a cost of Rs 16,680 crore, Parliament was informed today. “Government of India has approved a plan for constructing 1,000 km of expressways under National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase VI at a cost of Rs 16,680 crore on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. The main criteria for selection of expressway corridors will be the traffic volume and it was approved that the highest density corridor i.e. Vadodara-Mumbai Corridor (400 km) to be given top priority and considered for feasibility study, the Minister said. It was also decided that remaining 600 km will be selected out of the routes identified on the basis of traffic volume. “”The high density corridors under NHDP Phase VI are – Vadodara-Mumbai corridor (400 km) in Gujarat and Maharashtra, Delhi-Meerut (66 km) on NH 58 in Delhi and UP, Bangalore-Chennai (334 km) on NH 4 in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu… “…Delhi-Jaipur (261 km) on NH 8 in Delhi and Rajasthan, Delhi-Chandigarh (249 km) on NH 1 and NH 22 (now changed to Delhi, Punjab and J&K, Kolkata-Dhanbad (277 km) on NH 2 in West Bengal and Jharkhand and Delhi-Agra (200 km) on NH 2 in Delhi and UP,” Gadkari said. Out of 66 km length of Delhi-Meerut Expressway, 30.63 km has already been awarded in 2 packages and contract agreement is executed, he said. In addition, the government has approved to take up one more expressway – Eastern Peripheral Expressway – for a length of 135 km in 6 packages, the Minister added. Thomas Greiss Authentic Jersey
Rs 35,000-cr PPP investment in Railways
Investment of over ?35,000 crore has been committed for various projects through public-private partnership in Railways, the Lok Sabha was informed today. Some of the areas identified by Railways for investment through the PPP route are building last mile connectivity for ports/mines/industrial clusters, setting up of manufacturing units for rolling stock, building Private Freight Terminals (PFT), procurement of wagons, private operation of containers trains and redevelopment of stations among others, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain said in a written reply to a question. Elandon Roberts Womens Jersey
Road maintenance policy on the anvil in Kerala
A slew of measures, including a road maintenance policy, is to be rolled out to ensure proper maintenance of roads under the Public Works Department (PWD) and to prevent illegal and unscientific digging of corridors. While the government will take time to come out with a maintenance policy, the PWD has decided to designate a Chief Engineer (CE) as CE (Maintenance) to ensure maintenance of the roads. The CE will be provided supporting staff and infrastructure. Announcing this at a press conference here on Wednesday, Minister for Public Works G. Sudhakaran said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has given the nod for the road maintenance policy. Necessary equipment will be purchased after consulting Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac to ensure that potholes are filled and roads repaired soon. Henceforth, the detailed project report being prepared for road, building and bridge works executed by the PWD should have all the prescribed norms. The government will not allow revision of the sanctioned estimate for works. In addition to the three-year defect liability period, another four years of contract maintenance period will be launched. The Minister said utility ducts had been made mandatory in all new roads to prevent the digging of roads for laying cables and other utilities of the KSEB, BSNL and KWA. Covered drains with slabs will be another new feature of the roads. Cycle tracks will be provided in roads wherever land is available. Duron Harmon Jersey
Major reforms underway in freight sector: Prabhu
Major reforms are underway in the freight sector with reduction of cargo charges announced in the rail budget for the first time, and it will benefit the railways in a big way during the coming days, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today said. “In our country due to non-running of time-tabled freight trains, most of the cargo does not come to railways… when will the goods train reach no one knows. “But to change this scenario we have already started a programme and two pairs of time-tabled container trains — ‘Cargo Express’ — have commenced and I am happy to share that they reached their destinations ahead of their scheduled time,” Prabhu said after flagging off a time-tabled container (weekly) train between Nagalapalli and Tuglakabad at Secunderabad railway station here. He said though the railways gets two-thirds of its income from goods transportation, “we did not focus on this and because we ignored it, the railways’ share in cargo has been on the decline and in the coming days it will be a matter of concern how the railways will support itself.” “Hence, for the first time in the history of the rail budget, from this year we have initiated bringing down cargo charges. Reforms in the freight sector are mind-boggling, and will benefit railways in the coming days,” Prabhu said. The railways is the biggest user of energy, he said, pointing out that energy utilisation should be done in a proper way, and to bring down costs (on electricity) several measures also need to be undertaken. “Bringing down costs (reduce expenditure of railways on energy) is essential for survival of the railways…It’s a matter of existential need and we have formulated big policies on energy-saving,” the minister said. In the last two years, the Narendra Modi-led government has made the rail budget with the focus on providing passenger amenities and the budget has everything for the common man, he said. “Big investments to improve passenger amenities such as lifts, elevators, e-ticketing, catering on demand, mechanised laundry and the new Deen Dayal coach have been made,” he said. Prabhu also flagged off the 11307 Gulbarga-Hyderabad daily Intercity Express and the 11083 Mumbai LTT-Kazipet weekly Tadoba Express via video remote link during the event. He said the “two long-pending demands (to start passenger trains) have now been fulfilled.” Joe Theismann Jersey
Dispute between Delhi government, highway authority stalls NH-24 widening
A dispute between the Delhi Government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) over encroachment along NH-24 has stalled widening of the highway. While preparatory work has started on the NH-24, the Delhi Government is yet to hand over land to NHAI. The biggest contentious issue is removal of a slum cluster at Patparganj in East Delhi which is necessary for widening of the highway. The slum called Nehru Camp houses nearly 1000 shanties. Widening of NH-24 is important for smooth traffic flow between Delhi and Ghaziabad. This stretch of NH-24 from Sarai Kahle Khan to UP Gate is accessed by nearly three lakh vehicles every day. Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has recently taken up the matter with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for swift action for removal of encroachment. POLITICS INVOLVED? However, sources said the Delhi Government has not shown much keenness given the Aam Aadmi Party’s vote bank in the slums. The Nehru Camp falls in the constituency of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. Sources said the Delhi Government would get the land vacated only after the NHAI assures adequate compensation to the slum dwellers. A senior Transport Ministry official said they are working out the amount of compensation. “Widening of NH-24 will offer a big respite to lakhs of daily commuters between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has spoken to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and the latter has agreed to provide land. We are working out the amount of compensation. A decision will be taken soon,” said the official. DISPUTE OVER COMPENSATION However, sources said there was also a dispute over paying compensation. Since the land in question belongs to the Public Works Department (PWD), the NHAI wants the Delhi government to compensate the slum dwellers, sources said. According to Delhi Government officials, the slum is situated over PWD land which has to be handed over to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for converting NH-24 into 14-lane road. The notice to vacate the land was issued by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate in August 24. However, the demolition was stopped by the Delhi Government. Angry slum dwellers alleged that the Delhi government has not offered any alternate location for them. A police team was attacked by the slum dwellers when they were asked remove the encroachment from the roads. The AAP government has taken a decision against demolition of slums in Delhi unless a rehabilitation plan is put in place. Immediately after taking oath as Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal had issued a notification prohibiting demolition in Delhi. Carlton Fisk Womens Jersey
NHAI,IIT-Kharagpur ink pact for paneled concrete pavements
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and IIT-Kharagpur have entered into an agreement for research on laboratory and field investigations on paneled cement concrete pavements for highways. “NHAI in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur shall promote to develop a technology to construct paneled cement concrete (pre-fabricated in a small panel size) which can replace the design of construction of existing cement concrete road,” NHAI said in a statement. The duration of the research project is 3 years and NHAI has paid an amount of Rs 1.25 crore for the it, excluding cost of construction of trial pavement section on NH, the statement added. The highways in the country are generally paved with bituminous (asphaltic concrete) material produced from refineries. However, NHAI said it has been experienced that these highways are prone to damage and need periodic maintenance frequently due to adverse climatic conditions such as rain and hot weather prevailing in the country. “Therefore, to overcome this problem, the Government of India has recently announced a policy for the construction of concrete pavements for all major highways due to their longevity and maintenance free life,” it said. As per the current practices, the construction of these highways requires a monolithic (in-situ) layer of cement concrete normally 300 mm thick laid continuously over the prepared surface. Therefore, an innovation is required to optimise the design of concrete pavement in its traditional form which can facilitate the faster construction at much cheaper cost, thus, consuming less natural resources and promote the philosophy of Green Highways in the country. Any saving in design and construction with the help of new technology will not only entail huge investment but also save consumption of substantial quantity of natural resources used for production of cement and stone aggregates. “The paneled concrete pavement laid on a lean concrete base can fulfill government’s dream of providing a long lasting maintenance free pavement at a cost at par with those of asphalt pavements,” it said. Such pavements laid at a few places in India have given a good service when used as an overlay over a bituminous layer commonly terms as white topping (WT) but an extensive study is required to formulate the design practices for its use in wider perspective, it added. Jadeveon Clowney Authentic Jersey