7 BOT road projects reach financial closure over last 2 years

As many as seven build-operate-transfer (BOT) road projects reached financial closure over the last two years, parliament was told on Monday.

"Seven BOT projects have reached financial closure in the last 2 years. Some of the challenges faced by BOT projects are lack of equity with developers, over leveraged balance sheet of the developers, equity funded through borrowing by parent lender, stress on the existing road infrastructure loan portfolios of Financial Institutions (FIs), corporate debt restructuring effected in many special purpose vehicle (SPV) debt and sectoral exposure norms of FIs getting exhausted," inister of State for Road Transport and Highways Pon Radhakrishnan told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

He said that modes of delivery for implementing National Highway (NH) projects are BOT-Toll, BOT-Annuity, Hybrid Annuity and Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC), but BOT-Toll remains the default mode of delivery subject to project viability on case to case basis.

Major steps undertaken include emphasis on better project preparation including land acquisition, undertaking major policy initiatives and simplification of procedure for project appraisal, exit policy for concessionaires, amicable settlement of disputes, addressing issues for languishing projects, extensive coordination with line ministries and departments and promoting innovative project implementation through hybrid annuity model, he said.

--IANS

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