India to connect better with neighbours via infra projects
With support of Asian Development Bank (ADB), India is developing various infrastructure projects worth $5 billion in South Asia to improve connectivity in the region. “With ADB support, India is presently developing two priority road corridors. The first will connect India with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan through the ‘chicken neck’ area of North Bengal,” Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said today. He was speaking at the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) 2025 workshop here. The second road corridor will establish India-Myanmar connectivity in Manipur, he said, adding Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) at Agartala and Petrapole on India-Bangladesh border will be operationalised. “Another ICP at Moreh on India-Myanmar border will be developed. We are also planning to establish ICPs and improved Land Customs Stations (LCS) at key border points with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan to ease the movement of goods and people within the subregion. “India is planning to develop regional connectivity projects worth almost $5 billion in SASEC,” he said. India has also been assisting its neighbours in the sub-continent to improve their power situation. The India-Bangladesh transmission line is providing safe and reliable interconnection of the power grids to supply 500 MW of power to Bangladesh, he said. The 1,320 MW Maitree Thermal Power Project, a joint venture of NTPC and Bangladesh Power Development Board, will be developed, he said. The Power Grid Corporation of IndiaBSE -0.56 % is also engaged in developing three 230 kv transmission lines in Myanmar with the support of a credit line of $64 million between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, he added. Discussions are also on for a 1,680 km mega gas pipeline project linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan with India, he said, adding that at the request of the four participating countries, ADB has agreed to house the secretariat of this project. Recently, India has launched a major port-led development initiative called ‘Sagarmala’, which will help modernise ports and coastlines to contribute more to growth. “Apart from the modernisation of the existing ports in the east coast, India is developing two new ports on the same coast line at Dugarajapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Sagar Island in West Bengal. These ports will further enhance our trade with the neighbours and ASEAN countries,” Das said. Das further said India is also developing the East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC), with ADB as lead partner, and Vizag Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) project is part of the first phase. The goal of the ECEC is not only to generate domestic output and employment, but also to create a more competitive environment for the development of trade and industry in the region, he said. The ECEC will facilitate the movement of the bulk of India’s major natural resources like coal and iron ore and can serve as a node for extractive and downstream value-added industries, he said. About 90 per cent of India’s trade by volume and 70 per cent by value are moved through ports and the major ports thus play a key role in facilitating external trade. The focus has been on improving the port infrastructure, modernisation of existing facilities and increasing the capacity and draught at ports, he said. Mika Zibanejad Womens Jersey
Construction of Highways in Himalayan Region
At present, the connectivity through National Highway for Kedarnath in Uttarakhand is up to Gaurikund, beyond which there is pedestrian pathway of 17 km length. The project of widening and improvement of National Highway to two lane with/without Paved Shoulder from Rudraprayag to Gaurikund for 76 km length is being taken up in a phased manner. The start of development & improvement of works is targeted for commencement from 2016-17 with completion by 2020. During last two years, works amounting to Rs. 350 Cr have already been sanctioned on this National Highway. Jason Pierre-Paul Womens Jersey
Kandla smart city proposal to be presented on May 11
It’s just not mega cities that are looking towards a transformation-of being smart cities-but even port towns will have this privilege. The union government had already announced development of 12 major port towns. But Kandla port form Gujarat will be one of the first to put forth its smart city plan. A presentation on Kandla’s smart city will be made on May 11 in New Delhi. The smart city plan will be executed by the Kandla Port Trust over 900 hectare. It will even extend to the neighboring Gandhidham town. The KPT has appointed Tata Consultancy to prepare a report on the smart city plan. The projects will be implemented by a special purpose vehicle and most projects will be executed through PPP mode. His is to introduce paid civic services. The KPT will handle construction of roads that connect public areas, while while internal roads and other civic infrastructure facilities will be constructed by developers. Joonas Donskoi Womens Jersey
PMC yet to receive Smart Cities Mission funds from state
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is still waiting for funds for the Smart Cities Mission even a month after the allotment was announced. The Union government had announced that Rs 194 crore would be given to Pune under this mission as part of the first instalment. The funds were to be deposited in Pune smart city project’s account within one week. Along with funds from government, PMC and the state government are expected to raise funds for the actual implementation of this project. The civic body wants to give thrust to involving private investors. The funds will be used for starting the projects in area development section i.e. Aundh-Baner-Balewadi and pan-city areas. PMC would start 15 projects under this scheme in the next three months. Smart city initiatives are estimated to cost Rs 3,480 crore. As per PMC officials, the funds were handed over to the state government on April 6. They confirmed that the funds should have reached PMC in a week’s time. “We have come to know that the funds will be dispatched soon. They are expected this month. We are following up at the state as well as the Union government level,” said PMC official Ashish Agrawal, who is working on the smart city project. Speaking about the delay, he said that the process of making budget allotments and other formalities, such as approvals from different stakeholders, are under-way, leading to the delay. The special purpose vehicle (SPV), which was registered in March, would implement the project. Named ‘Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited,’ it has seven stakeholders. Of them, six include the mayor, standing committee chairman, leader of the House, leader of opposition, PMC commissioner and additional commissioner. The divisional commissioner would be the seventh stakeholder as a state representative. “If the PMC has to participate in the process of allocation of funds, we will be informed accordingly. We are yet to get the details about status of funds,” said Ulka Kalaskar, chief accountant of PMC, replying on what role PMC will play to utilise the funds. Conor Sheary Authentic Jersey
Bengaluru : The City needs a sustainable and realistic plan
Citizens expecting solutions to traffic woes, mounting garbage and missing municipal services may be disappointed as the plan does not address these sectors directly . Following the diktats of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act 1961, it addresses land use, road networks, reservations, and building regulations. These limited aspects, however, have a significant impact on the city’s future.Key opportunities include: 1) Reviving the city centre to avoid the `donut’ effect: Twenty nine wards are witnessing declining population growth rates. These areas within the inner ring road of the city have the highest levels of municipal services and public transport access. Relaxing rigid zoning, introducing mixed uses, increasing densities and FAR (built up area) will encourage redevelopment and increase the affordability and supply of building stock.Attempts to lower FAR artificially, below than what is already consumed, could be counterproductive. The unsustainable `donut’ effect -where the city centre empties out and un-serviced peripheries become the destinations for housing and jobs -must be avoided. 2) Uniting urban form with mass transportation: With billions being spent on the metro rail network, the shape and pattern of urban development must complement it. The highest mix of uses, FAR, dwelling unit densities, parking maximums and quality public spaces need to be encouraged to form `transit-oriented development’.This will reduce time and distance of travel, encourage people to walk, bicycle and use public transport and reduce reliance on personal vehicles. 3) Involving local stakeholders through local area planning: Implementing the generalised city master plan locally will be futile without interactive participation. The Master Plan and the KTCP Act 1961 must enable Local Area Plans (LAPs) at the ward level to bring in local knowledge, dynamism, values and priorities. LAPs serve as the common platform to bring together planning agencies, service provision agencies and people to implement proposals on the ground. 4) Adopting alternatives to compulsory land acquisition: Critical projects such as the Peripheral Ring Road have been languishing due to resistance from land owners and prohibitive costs. Alternatives with better success are being used in other states, such as land readjustment and land pooling.These mechanisms only readjust enough land to provide roads and amenities while the remaining is returned to the owner. The plots reduce in size but increase dramatically in cost, reducing dissent.Master plans unfortunately , are notorious for their violations than their implementation. Routine setback encroachment, disproportionate FAR consumption, non-permissible uses, and buildings on reservations occur. Fixes are later attempted through self-assessment fees for violations or change of use, de-notification, begging the question whether such controls-based planning is effective at all. While debates and complexities abound on whether to adopt the more effective international planning frameworks or leave it to the Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee, the BDA is getting ready to release its draft plan. Let’s hope a sustainable and realistic plan awaits us. Josh LeRibeus Jersey
Only 40% of funds cleared for highway maintenance: Panel
Governments have come and gone announcing projects worth lakhs of crores of rupees to build new highways and expressways, but none has allocated required budget for maintaining the expanding National Highway stretches. A parliamentary panel has cited how this allocation is barely 40% of the requirement. “Since, maintenance is a non-plan activity, governments have a tendency to apply ad hoc cuts due to resource constraints,” the committee has observed in its report submitted to Parliament last week. This comes as a wake up call for the present government, since highway minister Nitin Gadkari has announced plans to bring more state roads under NH network and increase its length from the present 1.3 lakh kilometres to two lakh kilometres. Once a state road is notified under NHs, state governments stop maintaining them. The committee has observed, “For 2016-17, only Rs 2,834 crore has been allocated for maintainance as against the estimated fund requirement of Rs 7,070 crore.” The non-plan allocation for maintenance of NHs in budget estimate of 2015-16 was Rs 2,701.40 crore. This was decreased to Rs 2,698.40 crore at revised estimate stage. The panel has recommended that maintenance work be given increased priority and to enhance fund flow. “This can be done by diverting funds from those heads where savings are expected,” the panel has suggested. Lavonte David Authentic Jersey
238 infra projects to cost Rs 1.6 lakh crore more on delays
Project cost of as many as 238 infrastructure projects, monitored by the Statistics Ministry, have overshot by Rs 1.6 lakh crore from their original estimates due to delays on account land acquisition forest clearances and other reasons, official data showed. The Statistics Ministry is monitoring 1,071 infrastructure projects worth Rs 150 crore or above each in various sectors such as power, railways and road. During February 2016, of 1071 projects, 238 projects reported cost overruns and 341 projects reported time delays. “Total original cost of implementation of 1,071 projects was Rs 12,66,248.36 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 14,26,985.93 crore, which reflects overall cost overruns of Rs 1,60,737.57 crore (12.69 per cent of original cost),” the data by Statistics Ministry showed. According to the data, expenditure incurred on these projects till February 2016 was Rs 5,66,058.05 crore, which is 39.67 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects. However, compared to April 2015, the number of projects reporting cost overruns came down to 22.22 per cent in February 2016 from 30.47 per cent of total monitored projects last year. Projects reporting time overruns fell to 31.84 per cent in February this year from 42.61 per cent in April 2015. In April 2015, out of 758 projects on the monitor of Statistics Ministry, 231 projects reported cost overruns and 323 projects reported time overruns. Speedy implementation of projects assumes significance in view of government’s push to move towards high growth trajectory of over 8 per cent and touch double digit mark in few years. According to the Ministry’s report on these projects, the reasons for time overruns as reported by various project implementing agencies are delay in land acquisition, delay in forest clearance and delay in supply of equipment. The other such reasons are fund constraints, geological surprises, problems in equipment erection, geo-mining conditions, slow progress in civil works, shortage of labour, inadequate mobilisation by the contractor, Maoist problems, court cases, contractual issues, ROU/ROW problems, law and order situation etc. Joel Edmundson Jersey
Nod for Rs. 4,300 crore worth of highway projects
The Government on Wednesday approved two highway projects worth around Rs.4,300 crore, among a slew of other decisions. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave a nod to the four-laning of the Lucknow-Sultanpur section on National Highway-56 in Uttar Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs.2844.72 crore. The two-laning, with the formation of four lanes, of the Shimla Bypass (Kaithlighat to Shimla section) on National Highway-22 in Himachal Pradesh was the second project which was approved, at a cost of Rs.1583.18 crore. The Cabinet also approved a proposal to create flexibility in the use of domestic coal. The move is expected to reduce the cost of power generation by 40-50 paise per unit, which will lead to savings of Rs 25,000 per year in around 4-5 years. The adoption of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics was also approved. This adoption is expected to bring “professional independence, impartiality, accountability and transparency in methods of collection, compilation and dissemination of official statistics,” according to the Government. A Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates on cooperation concerning currency swap agreements was approved.The Cabinet approved the proposal to move, in Parliament, the adoption of the recommendations of the Railway Convention Committee (2014) – dividend of five per cent and four per cent for the years 2014-15 and 2015-16respectively on the capital invested in Railways. Joe Kocur Authentic Jersey
Freight Corridor Corp to award Rs 14,000-cr contracts in FY17
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC), the Indian Railways’ arm implementing the ambitious freight corridor project, will award contracts worth Rs 14,000 crore in the current financial year (2016-17) in a bid to quickly wrap up work and meet the 2019 deadline for commissioning the Rs 82,000-crore project. “By July 2016, we are going to place orders worth Rs 10,000 crore. The balance – around Rs 4,000 crore worth of contracts – will be placed in the rest of the current financial year itself. After this, work will be progressing in every section of DFCC,” said a senior executive. He added the company has so far placed 76 per cent of the contracts for civil works and 63 per cent of electrical contracts, apart from 48 per cent of the total signalling contracts. For the construction of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, contracts worth Rs 4,000 crore were awarded in 2013 followed by another Rs 5,000 crore contracts in 2014. Last year, the DFCC placed around five contracts for signalling and telecommunication, electrification and civil construction. Similarly, nine contracts were placed for Western Dedicated Freight Corridor. The executive said the government-owned firm placed contracts worth Rs 24,000 crore in 2015-16 for various works on the freight corridor. “This is compared to Rs 13,000 crore worth of contracts placed in previous six years (2009-14),” he said. DFCC’s capex in FY16 stood at Rs 8,600 crore, compared to Rs 2,800 crore in FY15, a three-fold increase. In 2016-17, the company plans an expenditure of Rs 12,500 crore, including Rs 3,500 crore earmarked for land acquisition and the balance Rs 9,000 crore for contractual payments. The DFCC is constructing the 3,350-km-long freight corridor project, including the 1,800 km of its eastern arm between Ludhiana and Dankuni in West Bengal. The Western DFC will come up between Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai. Brandon Fusco Authentic Jersey
Agra’s smart city plan to be vetted in Lucknow
It missed the bus to smart city-dom the first time round but Agra is not taking any chances now. The city’s initial plan for the second round of Smart City Challenge will be discussed in a state-level meeting in Lucknow. The city is among 12 contenders from UPMoradabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad and Rampur are the otherstaking positions on the start line. No UP city qualified in the first round. Gaps in the proposal and new plans will be discussed in the meeting. This time, the city has entrusted the preparation of its smart city proposal (SCP) to Crisil Risk and Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, which drafted Solapur’s successful first-round bid. The same consultant will write Jhansi’s SCP as well. Over the past week, CRIS collected information about the city and verified facts and figures. It is also analysing the first round proposal for improvements. Officials said the previous plan was not weak but was hobbled by improper presentation. This time the emphasis will be on the implementation strategy for plans included in the proposal and preparing a better financial model. Agra municipal commissioner Indravikram Singh said, “A state-level meeting regarding the smart city project will take place at the regional centre for urban studies in Lucknow University, which is also the external agency helping in developing an SCP. The gaps which we have identified will be assessed in the meeting. New plans will be discussed. A presentation will be made on the initial planning for Round 2.” “The revised SCP has to be submitted to Ministry of Urban Development by June 30, 2016,” Singh said. Laquon Treadwell Jersey