about how the time is just ripe to bring in larger players who can provide equipment on hire for construction. What is the way ahead for the infrastructure sector?
Since our company deals essentially with road projects, I would like to address the issue first. I think the realisation for public-private partnerships (PPP) has to travel further and deeper. Roads carry about 61 per cent of the country's freight and 85 per cent of the passengers load.
The National Highways constitute only 2 per cent of this, whereas they account for 40 per cent of the country's load. Around 9 per cent of the national highways are four-lanes, 56 per cent are double lanes and 35 per cent are single lanes.
The surface quality is poor and because of which the average truck and bus speed is only 50 km per hour. Of course, under the Golden Quadrilateral scheme the government is doing a tremendous job, but going forward, I feel, PPP is the way to move ahead. It should be done through the BOTs, BOOTs route.
Are there adequate innovations happening in the equipment finance area, is there a system where players can pool resources?
There has really been very little innovation in equipment finance so far. We need to get in larger player who can provide equipment on hire for construction. There are some policy snags: for instance a project office company, like ours, is governed by the RBI regulation which prohibits players like us from borrowing funds. It is not clear whether I can go in for equipment finance. If this was made clear, then we have a pool of equipment which others can use which would work very well for the industry.
How does a project office work, please explain your company's structure here?
Our parent company, Continental Engineering Corporation is the oldest and the largest infrastructure player in Taiwan. This Rs 5,000-crore conglomerate, has to its credit the high-speed Rail project and a large portion of Taiwan Metro, and among others a many highway projects. The company is more than 60 years old and listed on the
Taipei stock exchange. In India, it has a project office under the same name and we have an order book position of Rs 2,500 crore here.
Our projects here comprise seven highways, the Delhi-Metro section from Central Secretariat to AIIMS for which the funding is being done by CEC. We also have a wholly-owned subsidiary, CEC India Pvt Ltd, which is involved with Adidas factory construction in Andhra Pradesh.
As an SME what are the issue you face in your sector?
Pre-qualification with the employer is the biggest problem. Because when an SME "� with a turnover of Rs 100-200 crore, which does not account for much in this industry "� goes for a highway bid, there are some issues and they cannot easily pass muster. Hence, there has to be some sort of facilitation by the government, whereby SMEs can jump the gun and come into the big league. In my view, that's what the Budget should provide for.
