Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003 |
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Logistics
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Infrastructure Rlys takes mega bridges project out of RVNL purview — Seeks World Bank funds Gaurav Raghuvanshi
New Delhi , Sept. 29 THE Railways have decided to delink the four mega bridges being constructed at a cost of Rs 3,500 crore from the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), a special purpose vehicle created to implement the Golden Quadrilateral project announced last year. "RVNL would execute the projects on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) or SPV model. We decided to delink the four mega bridges from RVNL as it would be difficult to segregate the revenues from these bridges. We are now negotiating with the World Bank for funding the bridges separately," the Railway Board Chairman, Mr R.K. Singh, told Business Line. All the four bridges - Bogibeel over the Bramhaputra, two over the Ganga, at Patna and Mungher, and one over the Kosi river at Nirmali in Supaul district of North Bihar — have already been sanctioned and work is in progress, Mr Singh said. "Preliminary discussions have been initiated with the World Bank and we are working closely with the Ministry of Finance for tying up funds," he said. The Railways are also negotiating with the World Bank for the Rs 8,000-crore Golden Quadrilateral and Rs 3,000-crore port connectivity projects being executed by RVNL, he said. The Railways have already tied up a $313.6-million (Rs 1,500 crore) loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for RVNL. A senior Railway official said that a team of World Bank officials was arriving in New Delhi on October 3 for discussions on funding the works under RVNL and the four mega bridges. "The Railways are seeking Rs 6,500 crore from the World Bank for RVNL. In addition, the Government would also pitch for funds for the mega bridges," the official said. The negotiations would be carried out by officials from the Ministry of Finance with the help of the Railways. The National Rail Vikas Yojana was announced on August 15, 2002 at an estimated cost of Rs 15,000 crore. The project envisages better rail connectivity between the four metropolitan cities - New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai — through the Golden Quadrilateral and its diagonals. It also entails connecting important ports to these trunk routes for seamless flow of freight traffic across the country.
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