PMO steps in to revive nine stalled road, power projects
Sidhartha
New Delhi:
New Delhi: The Prime Minister's Office has stepped in to get at least nine road and power projects moving as part of an exercise to revive stalled projects, which are putting a strain on developers as well as banks.
On Thursday , Nripendra Misra, the principal secretary to PM Narendra Modi, will spend half a day with lenders and officials, who are trying to clear the roadblocks holding up these projects, sources said.
On the agenda is to get at least five highway projects moving, including GurgaonJaipur, Panvel-Indapur, Srinagar-Banihal, QazigundBanihal and Chennai-Nashri. The Gurgaon-Jaipur project, for instance, is held up for years and is proving to be a major headache for traffic moving from the national Capital to the Pink City. Sources said while the developer is seeking more funds from the lenders, the banks are pointing out that the developer needs to find resources. There are at least seven trouble spots on the highway , including the Hero Honda Chowk, which requires large funding. Three of the five projects being taken up are in Jammu & Kashmir. Similarly, there are four power projects -Ratnagiri Gas and Power (popularly known as Dabhol), Coastal Gujarat Power, Avantha Seoni Power and KSK Mahanadi Thermal -where the PMO wants the issues to be resolved immediately. For instance, a roadmap for getting Dabhol moving once again has already been submitted to PMO, which includes splitting the company into two one led by NTPC to generate electricity and the other by GAIL to deal with gas. While Indian Railways is willing to buy the power from one of the units that would go on stream, there is inadequate gas supply to fire the plant.
Although the government, starting with the UPA, has managed to clear hurdles faced by 312 projects -a majority were related to coal supply and environmental clearances -there are still 375 projects that are listed on the website of the Project Monitoring Group where problems need to be resolved.The pending projects would see an investment of almost Rs 20 lakh crore, although several such as those related to steel and other commodities as well as special economic zones are either expected to be shelved or delayed due to market conditions.
