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The plan is to participate in infrastructure financing projects mainly pertaining to roads, ports and renewable energy development throughout the country, with special focus on the East and North-East.

Kolkata , Sept. 18

SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd has decided to fully exploit the fresh opportunities emerging in the wake of the newly notified Scheme (to be administered by the Finance Ministry) for Government support to public-private partnerships in infrastructure.

Suitable budgetary provisions will be made in the annual Plans on a year-to-year basis for the purpose of the innovative `viability gap funding' or grant, being attempted for the first time in the country to bring in private sector participation in infrastructure development projects.

Talking to newspersons here after the company's 20th AGM, Mr Hemant Kanoria, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the company, said the plan was to vigorously participate in infrastructure financing projects mainly pertaining to roads, ports and renewable energy development throughout the country, with special focus on the East and North-East. He said some new infrastructure projects were being actively pursued.

The PPP (public-private partnerships) concept, under the new Scheme, was being applied particularly to the five key infrastructure development areas of: SEZs; Roads & bridges, railways, seaports, airports and inland waterways; Power; Urban transport, water supply, sewerage, solid waste management and other physical infrastructure in urban areas; and International convention centres and other tourism infrastructure projects.

Mr Kanoria said the total viability gap funding under the scheme shall not exceed 20 per cent of the total project cost, and will be in the form of a capital grant at the stage of project construction. Funding up to Rs 100 crore for each project, he clarified, will be sanctioned by the `empowered institution', subject to budgetary ceilings indicated by the Finance Ministry, and amounts of over Rs 200 crore may be sanctioned by the empowered panel with the approval of the Finance Minister.

The PPP projects, in the first two years of operation of the scheme, will be funded on a first come, first served basis. "We are quite bullish that the infrastructure sector is now poised to grow at an astronomical pace, and Srei will capitalise on the opportunities."

Mr Kanoria said the company has made a strong entry into the renewable energy sector, for rural India, and has launched easy financing schemes for solar home lighting systems.

He said though the portfolio size so far has only been to the extent of Rs 30 crore, it was being gradually increased, and a special team has been created within the organisation to calculate the carbon points being generated for future trading.

He informed that Srei has expanded its reach in West Bengal in renewable energy, and was now making its presence felt in the South, mainly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, in financing solar heaters and other energy devices.

The company has recorded a PAT of nearly Rs 11 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2005 (a rise of 205 per cent over Rs 3.59 crore in the same quarter the previous fiscal).

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