Pwc, Sbi Caps Front-Runners For Eight Nhai Projects

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), and SBI Capital Markets have emerged as front-runners for bagging the financial advisor's mandate for eight road projects entailing a total investment of about Rs 1,900 crore.

The bids were invited by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the nodal agency for road policy in India, and submitted on Thursday.

"PricewaterhouseCoopers, IDFC and SBI Caps have emerged as the lowest bidders for various road projects. ICICI, which had also bid for these projects, is not the lowest bidder in any of the projects. A decision will be taken soon by NHAI on the various mandates," merchant banking sources said.

The eight road projects are for constructing road links between the ports and the national highways. The links will be built between the ports of Haldia, JNPT, Visakhapatnam, Paradip, Tuticorin, New Mangalore, Kochi and Chennai.

IDFC has emerged as the lowest bidder for building road links from the ports of Haldia, JNPT and Visakhapatnam. SBI Capital Markets is the front-runner for the Paradip, Tuticorin and New Mangalore road links. PricewaterhouseCoopers is the lowest bidder for the Kochi and Chennai road -port links.

These links are expected to be ready by the end of 2003. Industry analysts have estimated the cost of construction of the links from Haldia, JNPT, Visakhapatnam, Paradip, Chennai, Tuticorin, Kochi and New Mangalore at Rs 325 crore, Rs 340 crore, Rs 130 crore, Rs 450 crore, Rs 180 crore, Rs 260 crore, Rs 130 crore and Rs 325 crore, respectively.

Indian ports are severely handicapped by the lack of adequate road links between the ports and highways. This, in turn, hinders cargo growth and is one of the reasons why Indian ports languish behind their global counterparts. The average turnaround time for ships in Indian ports is about six days while, in the case of major ports like Hong Kong and Singapore, it is a matter of hours.