The Hindu Business Line : Malaysia offers `Total Solutions' to boost NHAI activities

OUTLINING his country's domestic road network development experience, including involvement in the highway projects, the Minister of Public Works, Malaysia, Mr Dato Seri S.Samy Vellu, has said here "highways are systems, and, as systems, must be handled in totality".

Speaking at the CII Partnership Summit 2006 on Friday on `Partnering in Infrastructure - India and Malaysia: The Road Ahead', Mr Samy Vellu offered Malaysia's "Total Solutions Package" to India, involving planning, implementing and management services, to complement the activities of the National Highways Authority of India.

The Minister has suggested that, as per their studies, as many as 10 freeways in India should roll out in sequence in order to develop a coherent traffic dispersal programme and efficient inter-city linkages.

The suggested ones are Eastern Peripheral Highway, Amritsar-Chandigarh, Chennai-Bangalore, Bangalore-Pune, Delhi-Kolkata, Bangalore-Hyderabad, Chennai-Hyderabad, Bangalore-Kochi, Durg-Nagpur and Delhi-Bhopal.

Mr Samy Vellu suggested that the above projects could be undertaken on a smart partnership arrangement between Malaysian and Indian companies on any feasible financial model that serves the needs of all.

Pointing out that the BOT model was quite suitable for such venture if the public have the paying capacity, he said alternatively, financial arrangements could be designed to make the project affordable to the people.

All that the Indian Government needs to do is to make the investment climate attractive.

"Malaysia-India partnership will indeed be suitable for this development model with Malaysia undertaking the `Built' portion, and India undertaking the `Operate' segment to create employment, and finally for both parties to hand over the project to the Indian Government at no cost to the taxpayers."

Citing the case of China, which is mulling using part of the country's foreign exchange reserves to finance domestic infrastructure development, Mr Samy Vellu said this was possible because of the country's huge forex reserves at $794.2 billion (as on November 30, 2005), second only to that of Japan.