Malaysian team to visit India to explore road projects

A Malaysian delegation will soon visit India to explore opportunities for investing in highway projects in public private partnership (PPP) mode, Parliament was told today.
Last month, Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber visited the South-East Asian nation, where the government, industry and other stakeholders showed keen interest in participating in highway projects, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways P Radhakrishnan said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
"As a follow-up, a Malaysian delegation is visiting India shortly for further discussion about modalities of procurement and participation in the bidding process," he said.
The Minister informed the House that during April 2011-14, a team of officers headed by Chhibber had visited Malaysia.

"The Malaysian government, industry, financial institutions and other stakeholders have shown keen interest in participation in highway projects under PPP model, especially the new variant of the PPP model viz. Hybrid Annuity Model," Radhakrishnan said.
The model is a mix of EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) and (Build Operate Transfer) BOT formats, with government and the private sector sharing the total project cost in the ratio of 40:60, respectively.

The Minister said: "A total of 208 highways projects are currently at different stages of implementation in the PPP mode across the country."
Due to economic downturn resulting in uncertainty about traffic projections and consequent revenue generation, non-availability of equity with the concessionaires as well as due to other construction-related issues, the response to national highways (NH) projects under PPP has been poor, he noted.

The government is taking several steps for speedy and timely completion of highway projects, including considering new variants of PPP model such as Hybrid Annuity Model to attract bidders for new projects, Radhakrishnan added.