Monday, August 31, 2009

KNR's Rs 460 cr BOT road nearing completion under SPV route

G Seetharaman

Hyderabad-based KNR Construction's Rs 460 crore project allotted to it by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is nearing completion after a delay of five months, according to the company's executive director K Jalandhar Reddy.

"We have already applied for a provisional completion certificate and we should get it in the next 10-15 days," Reddy said.

The build-operate-transfer (BOT) (annuity) project by NHAI is a 60 km-stretch between the Bangalore International Airport at Devanahalli and the Andhra Pradesh border on National Highway-7.

A BOT contract is defined as project which a company or consortium, after winning the bid, builds the road, operates it for a specified period, earns revenues through either toll or annuity from the government and then returns it to the government at the end of the concession period. This NHAI project has a concession period of 20 years.

The special purpose vehicle (SPV) executing the project is a 60:40 joint venture between Patel Engineering and KNR. "Our first annuity drawdown of Rs 34 crore is due on September 23 and we will go ahead with it," said Reddy.

He added that work on a bypass on the stretch will be completed soon. "But there is a grace period of 120 days after the provisional certificate is issued. We will complete it in that period," said Reddy.

KNR and Patel Engineering had won the project in March 2007 and were scheduled to complete it in 24 months. NHAI was to acquire 50% of the land required within six months of awarding the project and the rest in the next three months. But it was only in April that the companies got the go-ahead for a 3 km-stretch that was disputed.
KNR's other BOT (annuity) project in consortium with Patel Engineering is also expected to get delayed by two months from its scheduled completion in next March.

The Rs 550 crore project is a 50 km-stretch on the Hyderabad-Nagpur highway.
"There were issues with acquiring some forest land. It's almost done now," Reddy said.

DNA in April reported both the projects would be delayed because of land acquisition issues.

1 comment:

  1. If you complete balance work in 150 days,
    Will you be penalised for 30 days(150-120) days or 150 days ...?

    ReplyDelete