The Hindu Business Line : Rs 100-cr corpus for construction equipment bank

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, inspecting an industrial equipment at CIDEX trade fair along with the President (Operations) and Deputy Chairman, Larsen and Toubro, Mr A. Ramakrishna, on Saturday in Hyderabad. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Hyderabad , Dec. 6

THE National Academy of Construction (NAC), Indian Infrastructure Equipment Ltd, promoted by SREI International Ltd, L&T Finance and Nagarjuna Construction Company Ltd, have teamed up to form a joint venture NAC Infrastructure Equipment Ltd, with a seed capital of Rs 10 crore and a debt component of Rs 40 crore.

This initiative seeks to provide a construction equipment bank, the first such facility in South India. It is proposed to increase the capital to Rs 100 crore.

The launch of the new company was formally announced here by the State Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, here on Saturday at Build4India, a technology forum for the building and construction industry. This was announced at the four-day meeting being held at the Hitex Exposition centre here.

This event, which has attracted over 120 participants including scores of participants from overseas, is being organised by Cidex Trade Fairs, a joint venture of Messe Dusseldorf and KolnMesse International, L&T and Hitex. The event has four concurrent themes and a technology summit.

During the inaugural session, Mr Naidu announced that additional land would be allotted to expand the scope of NAC, wherein more infrastructure is being developed, which includes a modern convention centre and a five-star hotel.

This centre is to be linked to the metro rail so that several other events would be hosted here. It is also proposed to host a retail expo centre at Hitex.

Mr R.C. Sinha, Director General of NAC, said Build4India would provide the construction industry an opportunity to source its requirements of latest machinery and technology and also the Indian manufacturers to display their latest products. This would provide first grade international contracts and provide a forum to tap the enormous potential of the construction industry.

Seeking certain sales tax exemptions to bring new equipment into the State, Mr Sinha said the existing tax structure discouraged people to move construction equipment. "If we adopt a more flexible sales tax regime for the construction equipment industry, this will encourage free movement of equipment and also attract more companies to join this initiative,'' he said.

Responding to various issues, Mr Naidu said the State had earmarked 0.25 per cent of the contractors' bill proceeds for the corpus of NAC and this was aimed at providing a catalytic role for the industry.

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