The Budget bet for the infrastructure sector is building up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious projects, including the AMRUT. Speaking to Bloomberg TV India, NBCC Chairman and Managing Director Anoop Kumar Mittal says the company expects to grow its topline by 30-40 per cent in the next 3-4 years and a tremendous increase in order book size.

How is your order book growing, which should be a good reflection on the action on the ground?

As far as NBCC is concerned, in last three quarters, growth was substantially high. Topline has increased by 30 per cent year-on-year and bottomline maybe by 17-18 per cent. So, topline and bottomline increased quite significantly in this financial year. As far as order book is concerned, this year was phenomenal for the company. We have bagged almost ₹17,000-18,000 crore orders in this financial year. And as of now we are sitting on the order book of ₹35,000-40,000 crore.

What sectors are looking most promising right now in terms of your order book?

In our order book, the most promising orders are from the infrastructure side. At present, we are constructing 7 IITs, few NITs and a few agriculture universities — that’s on the education side. On health sector, there are a number of projects. Recently, we have bagged big orders from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. Then there is a plan to redevelop Pragati Maidan ITPO — there is an order of ₹2,500 crore from that we have bagged.

What are the expectations from the Budget for your company as well as for the sector?

The government is of course planning to allocate more in the Budget on the infrastructure side, especially urbanisation of the cities under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation or AMRUT scheme. So I am expecting a lot of Budget provision from that scheme. Second is the road sector. The government will definitely give boost to this sector. And as far as expectation from industry side is concerned particularly real estate developer and company like NBCC, the tax deduction provision should be increased so that there is an increase in the number of home buyers.

A lot of experts in the infra space say the present PPP model does not really work. What can be an ideal PPP model?

The industry and business entities are not sure where they want to spend because ultimately everybody in the market has to earn money. So this cannot be a case of gamble because the model should be that everybody has equal chance to earn the money. There are a number of things, which we have to sort out in PPP model.

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