Bangladesh, India launch transshipment operations
ndia and Bangladesh on Thursday launched transshipment operations at the Ashuganj port to boost trade and facilitate seamless movement of goods in the landlocked region, with a cargo vessel unloading the maiden consignment to be transported to Tripura through Bangladeshi territory. Bangladesh’s Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan launched the operation at Ashuganj port in central Bangladesh, where 1,000 tonnes of iron and steel sheets were unloaded to be trans- shipped to Tripura through Bangladesh territory in trucks. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Economic Affairs Adviser Mashiur Rahman, Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Bangladeshi lawmakers and senior officials witnessed the inaugural ceremony. Transiting goods Under a revised protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade as part of a bilateral agreement signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka in June last year, India and Bangladesh agreed to let each other use their territories for transiting goods to a third country. The deal would enable Bangladesh to use Indian territory to transport goods to Nepal and Bhutan while on the other hand India would access Myanmar by crossing through Bangladesh. Under the arrangement, vessels carrying Indian cargos would unload at Ashuganj port, from where Bangladeshi trucks will carry the goods to Tripura to be delivered at the Akhaura checkpoint, the second largest trading point between India and Bangladesh after the Benapole-Petrapole post with West Bengal. India had long been seeking transit and transshipment facility to carry goods to Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, from West Bengal through a shortened route via Bangladesh. At present, trucks from Kolkata travel around 1,600 km to reach Agartala. The distance through Bangladesh would be only 500 km, according to experts. According to analysts, it costs India $67 to transport per tonne of goods from Kolkata to Agartala and Indian trucks take 30 days to reach there through the rugged terrains. The transshipment facility — combining riverine and land routes — would now enable India to deliver goods in an estimated 10-day time and reduce transport cost by nearly 50 per cent. Albert Wilson Jersey
Nitin Gadkari may meet Iranian counterpart Abbas Akhoundi in a bid to hasten Chabahar project
Shipping and roads transport minister Nitin Gadkari is likely to meet his Iranian counterpart Abbas Akhoundi next month in an effort to fasttrack the development of strategically important Chabahar port. The agenda of the meeting, for which venue and date are yet to be finalised, would be to expedite the work on development of the port through India’s investment and also set up industries within the port. India wants Iran to provide substantial land in the Chabahar SEZ for setting up of petrochemicals, fertilizer and other gas-based industries by Indian companies. Iranian ambassador to India Gholamreza Ansari met Gadkari at his office in Transport Bhawan on Thursday to review the plan. “Both ministers are scheduled to meet in July to work on the implementation of the plan for development of Chabahar port. They will also chart out the road map of port-led development in the area,” said a senior government official. “The venue and the dates for the meeting are yet to be formalised,” the official said. In May, India, Afghanistan and Iran had signed the trilateral trade treaty for developing the Chabahar port. The ministerial level agreement was signed in Iran in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. The strategic location of the port will allow India to access Central Asia through Afghanistan by skipping Pakistan. India would invest $500 million to develop the strategically important port, close to Iran’s border with Pakistan. The deal envisages development and operation for 10 years of two terminals and 3 berths at the port with cargo handling capacities. India will take 18 months to complete phase one of the construction. The port will be connected to Zahedan on the Iran-Afghan border through a railway line, which will also be built by Indian construction company IRCON. The port will also be used to ship crude oil and urea, saving India transportation costs. It will also cut transport costs and freight time for India to Central Asia and the Gulf by about a third. Terry Bradshaw Authentic Jersey
NCRPB approves 3 RRTS corridors, metro projects loan repayment tenure increased to 20 years
The National Capital Region Planning Board (NCPRB) today decided to increase loan repayment tenure from 10 to 20 years for metro and rail-based projects, reduced interest rates for infrastructure projects by 0.5 per cent and gave nod for implementation of three RRTS Corridors – Delhi-Alwar, Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-Meerut. The 36th meeting of the NCRPB held under the chairmanship of Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, also asked participating states to prepare the sub-regional plans for newly added districts within three months time for which 100 per cent funding will be provided by the Board. The Board also directed the NCR states to resolve the inter-state connectivity issues at the earliest, which would help in decongestion of roads leading to Delhi from adjoining states. “As metro projects are very capital intensive and have long gestation period, it needs support from financial institutions to make them viable. “First step in this direction is announcement of increase in the loan repayment period from 10 years to 20 years including moratorium period of 5 years for repayment of principal for all existing and new metro/ rail-based projects with financial assistance from NCRPB,” Naidu said while addressing the meeting. To provide a push for infrastructure development, the interest rates on funding from NCRPB was reduced from 7.50 per cent to 7 per cent for priority sector projects, while it was reduced for land development projects from 9.25 per cent to 8.50 per cent. Shawn Williams Jersey
Maharashtra government decides to use plastic waste in building roads
Maharashtra government has decided to use plastic waste along with tar in a bid to improve the durability and longevity of asphalt roads and reduce soil pollution. “The Centre in its recommendations has stated that using plastic waste along with tar to build roads improves the quality. It also helps reduce soil pollution caused by plastic. Thus, the state government has decided to include plastic waste along with tar while building roads,,” a Public Works Department official said. He said the CSIR-Central Road Research Institute has assured the government that roads built by using plastic waste along with tar will be of better quality and cheaper. In the beginning, municipal corporations with a population of over 5 lakh and municipal councils that have a population of over 2 lakh will be asked to include plastic waste for building roads in 50-km radius, the official said. For every 100 kg of tar used to build asphalt roads, 3 to 6 kg of plastic will be mixed in it, he said, adding materials like plastic carry bags, sacks, milk pouches, bin linings, cosmetic and detergent bottles, drinking water bottles, bottle caps, household articles will be used. “Studies have revealed that plastics waste have great potential for use in bituminous construction as its addition in small doses, about 5-10 per cent by weight of bitumen, helps in substantially improving the Marshall stability, strength, fatigue life and other desirable properties of bituminous mix, leading to improved longevity and pavement performance,” the guidelines by the Centre said. “The benefits are – such roads will have higher resistance to deformation, water induced damages, increase durability, strength and ultimately dispose of plastic waste in a larger quantity to save pollution,” it said, adding, “The use of waste plastic thus contributes to construction of green roads.”
Centre to invest Rs 75,000 crore to augment road infrastructure in UP
he Centre will invest about Rs 75,000 crore in augmenting highway infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh over the next two years. “Ministry of Road Transport and Highways through National Highways Authority of India and State Public Works Department shall invest approximately an amount of Rs 74,794 crore in the state in next two years,” Road Transport and Highways Ministry said in a statement. There are 60 national highways with a total length of 8,483 km in Uttar Pradesh, out of which 4,529 km are with NHAI and 3,143 km with the state PWD while no objection certificate is awaited for 10 highways totalling 811 km. Eight major projects worth Rs 6,218 crore having a length of 865 km were completed in the state in the last two years. “Thirty one major projects are ongoing with a total length of 2,156 km with total project cost (TPC) of Rs 19,436 crore. Twenty four major projects were awarded during 2014-15 and 2015-16, with a total length of 1,293 km and TPC of Rs 16,949 crore,” the statement said. It said 15 projects are likely to be awarded in the next 12 months with a length of 840 km with TPC of Rs 6,790 crore. Besides 1,400 km of national highways are under DPR (detailed project report) stage and civil construction work is likely to be awarded in the next two years for about Rs 14,000 crore. “Under CRF (central road fund) and schemes a total number of 79 projects have been sanctioned amounting to Rs 3,035 crore during 2015-16 and 2016-17…Thirty five national highways with 2,591 km length have been approved in-principle. MORTH shall invest an amount of about Rs 25,910 crore to develop these national highways,” the statement said. Shelby Harris Womens Jersey
Rs 25,500 crore highway projects under stress: India Ratings
Around Rs 25,500 crore of highway projects could be under stress because of unfavourable macro-economic conditions, sub-optimal traffic performance and stretched debt levels, credit rating agency India Ratings & Research said in a report on Friday. The agency called for “refinancing and risk balancing” of projects worth Rs 8,450 crore for the sector weighed by over leverage, lower-than-expected cash flows and land acquisition issues. “Unless the projects undergo a structural change, such as debt restructuring or refinancing, the projects’ credit metrics are unlikely to improve substantially. Due to the capital intensive nature of highway projects, more than 70% of the sample projects have a debt/equity ratio higher than 2.3 times which further ratifies the extent of (over) leverage,” Chintan Lakhani, associate director India Ratings & Research said in the note. The rating agency believes that 19% of the highway projects are over leveraged for the eight year period ending March 2025 because of lenders security of 1.2 times debt, which if not reduced could lead to projects breaching restrictive covenants embedded in the financing agreements. However, the agency also mentioned some silver linings. “Ind-Ra believes that positive traction towards refinancing is already visible as developers with completed projects are tapping capital markets/banks for exploring refinancing opportunities to optimise on the rate of interest and tail. This would also aid in directing capital towards new projects. Refinancing would result in debt amortisation being better aligned with the expected cash flows thereby resulting in improved credit metrics and possibly positive rating movements,” the agency said. Isaiah Crowell Womens Jersey
Chandrababu Naidu’s smart capital Amaravati will not be made in a day, or in 10 years
Andhra CM wants to create a capital that lasts forever. But as of now, Amaravati is taking forever. “We are worse than refugees, we have to build our lives all over again,” says Chandrababu Naidu, two years after Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh on June 2, 2014. Naidu is sitting in his camp office in Vijayawada, the curtains of his rooms printed with large images of Gautam Buddha. “My first task is to establish a capital for Andhra Pradesh and I want to create a city that will be remembered by people for centuries,” he says. But Naidu admits that he has no money and the financial position of Andhra Pradesh is pretty bad. The Government of India is really not open-fisted, so Naidu is looking for foreign participation in building “the pioneer smart city of India”. But right now Naidu is faced with another problem. Only a few officers have shifted with him to Vijayawada. Most officers stay in Hyderabad and shuttle to and fro. The entire staff of the government departments is in Hyderabad, although the ministers have shifted. “I understand that officers and staff want to stay in Hyderabad. But a beginning has to be made because, after all, we have to shift,” says Naidu.The CM has stipulated that the staff must shift by June 27. But clearly that is not possible. To move or not to move? For starters, a six-floor temporary government secretariat is being constructed in Velagapudi village in the new capital area. But only the ground and first floors of the building (that too the outer walls) are ready . The building is surrounded by slush, and with monsoons barely a week away work will be delayed. Without the offices, there is nowhere that the staff can shift to. The various employees’ unions are also speaking in different voices: in principle, they say, they are ready to move but they enquire about schools and colleges for their children and houses for them to stay . “I am ready to move from Hyderabad, but I am concerned about my 80-year-old mother. How do I move her in this uncertainty?” asks an assistant director of the state government. Under the provisions of the bifurcation, Hyderabad will remain the joint capital for 10 years. “Only two years are over. But it is one helluva job to manage the government from two places,” says a government secretary . He stays in Hyderabad but goes to Vijayawada twice a week. “Decisions are taken in Vijayawada where the CM and ministers are based. Then I rush to Hyderabad where the staff of my department operates from, to prepare the files and memos.Clearly, this system cannot go on for long,” he adds, but confides that his wife is not willing to move “under any circumstances”. At Uddandarayunipalem village (U R Palem in short), where the foundation stone for the capital was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Dasara day last year and where the permanent government secretariat, high court and legislative assembly buildings will come up, there is no sign of any activity save bullocks grazing the land and a group of young boys playing cricket. The farmlands are lying waste although in the village proper some denizens are constructing big houses. The landowners have given up their land under a pooling scheme in the hope of making big bucks. For the time being they are getting Rs 50,000 per month but shortly they will get developed plots of 1,000 square yards for residential purposes and 450 square yards for commercial purposes. It’s highly fertile land with the river in close proximity , and the farmers grew fruits and vegetables which fetched good prices. The local buzz is that many farmers have `sold’ the plots they will get in advance to realtors and got hefty amounts in return. It is the realtors who will get the developed plots. Some farmers say they were forced to do so because the government is taking too long to develop the plots. A total of 30,000 acres has been pooled across the 29 villages, and there are stories that in places strong-arm methods were used to make the farmers part with the land. However, there are a few farmers who are holding on -especially in two Reddy-dominated villages under the influence of opposition leader Jagan Reddy. Now the government is threatening to invoke provisions of the land acquisition Act. But private builders are in a rush… In Mandadam village, there is frenzied private construction. A villager confides that since the government secretariat will shift to Velagapudi close by, the demand for houses will go up. Housesflats for rents are being readied in anticipation. Many bank branches can be spotted: all of them are full of deposits. A bank branch manager confides: “The villagers now have a lot of money and want us to keep it safely .” In the meantime, the AP government is in final stages of doling out a contract to a Singapore company Ascendas Land (Singapore) PTE to construct two 31-storied commercial high-rises on 1,691 acres in the capital area. The buildings will have 8 lakh square feet of space each. We ask Naidu when his capital will finally be ready and complete. The CM answers indirectly: “I took nine years to complete Cyberabad.” Cyberabad is the new IT enclave of Hyderabad.Creating Amaravati is a more daunting task -so the message is clear. It will take more than a decade to create a brand-new Amaravati. WHY AMARAVATI? In Pali, Amaravati means abode of the deathless, meaning that nirvana can be attained here. Now a tiny town, it was a major Buddhist centre in third and second century BC. Naidu says that Buddhism was exported to southeast Asia from here. The proposed capital is 25km away from the historical Amaravati -but Naidu has chosen the name because he wants his capital to last forever. Moreover, he wants to use the name of the Buddha to establish an immediate
Government plans national highway grids for smooth travel; 27 corridors identified
India has over one lakh kilometres of national highways (NHs), but there is no scientific road network pattern and drivers can’t take a straight road to reach from one place to the other. To address this, NHAI has prepared a grid of 27 horizontal and vertical national highway corridors at a distance of every 250 km crisscrossing the country. All these stretches will be of four lanes and will provide more road space for seamless transport. The total length of these corridors, including ones such as Kanyakumari to Srinagar, Porbandar to Kolkata, Surat to Paradip Port, Rameswaram to Dehradun and Mangalore Port to Chennai Port, is about 36,600 km. Out of this, about 30,100 km are already NHs. But only 18,800 km of them are of four-lanes. “The rest are either single or two lanes and we have missing NH link of about 6,500 km, which are either state highways or major district roads. These stretches need to be converted into NHs and widened to four lanes for smooth travel,” said an official. Sources said going by the standard costing, the government will have to invest about Rs 25,000 crore for completing four-laning of the routes. The preparation of the grids will help the government re-designate the NHs for easy identification. For example, all even number NH grids can be identified for roads connecting east to west and odd number for corridors joining north end to south.”The grids will be important as the government is focusing on integrated transportation network. These grids will connect all major ports, which will help in quick evacuation and transport of cargo from one end to the other,” another official said. Sources said highway ministry has shared this plan with states and sought their views. “We want to be sure the states have not awarded or planned roads on PPP mode that are parallel to the identified routes,” a source said. TOI has learnt that NHAI had made a detailed presentation to highway minister Nitin Gadakri in March. The proposed NH grid shall not only improve connectivity in each region and state capital but will also provide highway link to 12 major ports, 45 out of 53 million plus cities and 26 state capitals besides providing connectivity to major tourist and religious places. The NHAI said planning for horizontal and vertical grid network was done keeping the concept of parallels to the existing north-south and east-west corridor alignments. These parallels are spread across the country , uniformly and thereby providing connectivity to every region.”The existing NH network depicts unbalanced network and even creates problem in numbering NHs systematically from road users’ perspective.The current approach has focused on state-level planning,” said an official. During UPA-2 , then highway minister Kamal Nath had made an effort to re-designate the existing NHs but it did not bear fruit. Kelvin Beachum Womens Jersey
PM Modi asks railways to speed up redevelopment of stations
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asked the railways to speed up redevelopment of stations and substantially raise its “level of ambition” in this regard as he reviewed the performance of the sector at a meeting here. At the meeting where the performance of Roads and Highways Ministry was also assessed, Modi pitched for more private investment in the sector and adoption of best practices in road development after studying various models across the country. He stressed the need for decongesting critical stretches of highways and adoption of latest technologies for toll collection. In the course of the review of the railways sector, it was noted that the capital investment in 2015-16 was over Rs 93,000 crore, “which represents a massive increase of 65 per cent over the previous year, and is the highest-ever”, a PMO statement said. “The Prime Minister stressed upon the need to speed up the redevelopment of Railway Stations, and urged the railways to substantially raise its level of ambition in this regard,” it added. He emphasized the need for the railways to upgrade and diversify the uses of its infrastructure, the statement said. “Centre is working on upgrading rail infra. In rural areas this will boost skill development & increase non-fare revenue for railways,” Modi tweeted later. “Progress in commissioning of lines & electrification of lines has been commendable. Discussed speeding up process of redeveloping stations,” he said in another tweet. The PMO added that 1780 km of rail lines have been commissioned and 1730 kms electrified during 2015-16, which represent the best performance on these metrics in railway history. “As far as roads are concerned, completion of highways is going on at remarkable pace. Spoke on need of more private investment in the sector,” the Prime Minister said in a tweet. “Also emphasised on decongesting critical stretches and invigorating the roads & highways sector with latest technology,” he added. At the meeting, the the Prime Minister was informed that over 6000 kms of highways were completed in 2015-16, while contracts for another 10,098 kilometres were awarded in the same period, the PMO said. “Also emphasised on decongesting critical stretches and invigorating the roads & highways sector with latest technology,” he added. At the meeting, the the Prime Minister was informed that over 6000 kms of highways were completed in 2015-16, while contracts for another 10,098 kilometres were awarded in the same period, the PMO said. He stressed on the need for studying various models of road development across the country, and adopting the best practices, so that more private investment can be brought into the highway construction sector, it added. He also stressed the need for decongesting critical stretches, and adopt latest technologies for toll collection. David Krejci Womens Jersey
Venkaiah Naidu to visit Germany to boost investments in Smart Cities
Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu will attend a three-day conference on ‘Smart City Mission’ starting tomorrow in Berlin to promote investment in the urban development sector in the country. Three Indian cities are to be developed as smart cities in collaboration with Germany. The Union Urban Development Minister, who leaves for Berlin tonight, will hold detailed talks with his German counterpart and senior officials on the roadmap for developing the Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Kochi (Kerala) and Coimbatore ( Tamil Nadu ) as smart cities with German assistance, an official statement said. The three cities have been identified further to consultations between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Morkel in October last year here. Naidu’s visit is also aimed at “intensifying high-level engagement for identifying new opportunities” for German companies in the urban development sector offered by the initiative of development of 100 smart cities, it said. Torey Krug Womens Jersey