‘Maintaining, not building, toilets will be the challenge’

With the announcement of Mission Swachh Bharat, public sector organisations and others are approaching National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) to construct toilets.

Mission Swachh Bharat, in the form of a mass movement, will be launched on October 2. Its aim is to create a clean India by 2019 and ensure that each Indian has access to toilets. Companies have started lining up with their CSR funds for this exercise.

NBCC Chairman and Managing Director Anoop Kumar Mittal tells BusinessLine that maintenance of these toilets, not funding or construction, will prove to be a challenge in this mission. Edited excerpts from the interview:

Which companies have approached you for the project yet?

Public sector companies such as SAIL and Coal India have approached.

I believe other organisations will also come forward because not everyone can do this kind of project as the volumes are small, and it needs overall presence. NBCC is one construction company which has national presence.

How many toilet blocks is the company expected to construct in a year?

The whole plan will be materialised in a month or so.

How much turnover will NBCC get from this exercise?

It is difficult to put a number right now. But rough estimates suggest that the first stretch of the exercise could fetch the company ₹200-500 crore.

What could be the challenges?

Funding is not a challenge. To identify where to construct the toilets, apart from schools, will be one. A major issue is that the projects individually are small in size ranging from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh for a unit.

The biggest challenge is going to be maintenance and operation. Power and water are huge requirements apart from manpower. My suggestion is that the construction should happen where infrastructure already exists, for instance petrol pumps.

Water and electricity are available at petrol pumps across the country so maintenance won’t be a challenge. We could also look at prefab or semi-prefab units.

What is the status with your deal with Air India for commercially developing their properties?

The talks are in final stages. It is a matter of time. I expect it will be done very soon. It is a general MoU. We are not looking at any specific property. Air India will offer us their land parcels. We will do due diligence and prepare detailed project reports. Whichever land parcel both think is viable, will be developed by NBCC.

Any new housing launches?

The company is launching housing projects at four locations in the next 3-4 months. In the next 15-20 days, we will announce a mixed-use development project in Ghaziabad which will offer 108 3-BHK housing units and 44 serviced apartments, apart from 83,000 sq ft of saleable commercial space.

Around next month, in Kolkata, we will offer residential and commercial spaces around 5.64 lakh sq ft. In Bhubaneswar, the project would offer 120 houses across 2-BHK and 3-BHK units, apart from 4.65 lakh sq ft of commercial space.

We also plan to launch a residential luxury project in Faridabad which would offer 162 apartments.

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