Gammon Infra to commission Rs3,736 crore road projects by June 2012

Gammon Infrastructure Projects (GIPL) will commission five road projects in 14 months, said managing director K K Mohanty. These projects are together worth Rs3,736 crore.
The first of these to go onstream will be the second phase of the Mumbai-Nashik Expressway in the next 1-2 months, according to Mohanty. “We are doing partial tolling now and collect about Rs20 lakh every day,” he said, adding that the toll collection has been 5-7% higher than estimates.

A four-lane bridge over river Kosi in Bihar, costing Rs449 crore, is set to be commissioned in November-December and the Lucknow-Gorakhpur stretch, part of the East-West corridor, by March. Both these projects are annuity-based.

A build-operate-transfer (BOT) toll project is one which a developer bids for, and after winning it, builds, operates for a specified period, earns revenues through toll and transfers to the government. In a BOT annuity project, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) pays the developer half-yearly annuity through the life of the project. NHAI might or might not toll the road.
Mohanty, who was till recently wholetime director with Srei Infrastructure Finance, said the Rs861 crore Rajahmundry-Godavari bridge in Andhra Pradesh will also commence operations by the end of the this fiscal.

The company’s biggest road project, the Rs950 crore Patna-Muzaffarpur highway in Bihar, is likely to go on stream by June 2012, he said. Other than these five, GIPL has three roads in its portfolio, all of which are operational.

GIPL is also developing three ports, five power projects and one special economic zone near Jamshedpur where it has not made much progress.

Asked of the company’s largest project by value, the Rs2,500 crore, 266 mw Youngthang Khab hydro project in Himachal Pradesh, Mohanty said the detailed project report is being prepared. “We have appointed the consultant and geological and ecological studies are being prepared.” He said rehabilitation and environmental clearances are sensitive issues these days and the company is working on those. The project, which will be financially closed next fiscal, is expected to be commissioned in 2016.

On GIPL’s diversification plans, Mohanty said the company has been bidding for water projects for a while now but it has not borne fruit. “We are also looking at metros and airports,” he said.