The Adani group,
which has a presence in the power, coal and maritime sectors, would soon foray
into the highway construction sector.
According to
sources in the know, the Gautam Adani (pictured)-led
group is expected to carve out a subsidiary that would undertake the execution
of highway contracts on
an EPC (engineering-procurement-construction) basis. It may also bid for
upcoming national and state highway contracts. An
emailed query sent to a company spokesperson for confirmation, however, went
unanswered.
Another group
company Adani Capital
Private on Thursday announced a Rs 100-crore investment in BSCPL Infrastructure
Ltd, a Hyderabad-based EPC and development infrastructure company, focused
primarily on the road sector. The funding in BSCPL would be retired out from
the proceeds of a BOT (build-operate-transfer) asset sale post completion of
the project.
Experts feel the
timing of the company to enter the road construction sector is opportune as the
infrastructure sector is on a growth path. “If they are planning a foray, it is
a great opportunity for them to bid for hybrid-annuity and EPC contracts and
even look at picking up equity in some of the highway monetisation projects,”
an industry expert who did not wish to be quoted said.
The Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs on August 3, 2016, had authorised the National
Highways Authority of India to monetise 111 publicly-funded projects and a list
of 75 operational projects was prepared for potential monetisation using the
BOT model. The proceeds from these projects would be utilised for development,
and for operations and maintenance of the highways.
At present, the
Ahmedabad-based Adani group has
presence in the power sector with an electricity generation capacity of
10,440MW. According to information on the firm’s website, more than 75 per cent
of the electricity generated at Adani Power’s
plants is pre-sold under long-term arrangements.
The company is
developing and operating mines in India, Indonesia and Australia, as well as
importing coal from across the world. Its thermal coal production stood at
11.75 million tonnes in 2016.
The group,
through its company Adani Ports and
Special Economic Zone, is present in seven port locations (Dahej, Dhamra,
Ennore, Hazira, Murmugao, Visakhapatnam, Tuna-off Tekra, near Kandla) in India,
apart from Mundra. The company plans to increase the annual cargo handled
capacity from its ports to 200 million tonne by 2020. The port is expected to
achieve 100 million tonnes or more of cargo handling capacity in the current
financial year.
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