Reliance Infrastructure's (R-Infra) third quarter consolidated net profit jumped 78% to Rs 728 crore due to an extraordinary item on account of share sale. R-Infra showed a profit of Rs 418 crore (pre-tax), as it sold around 1.9% share of its stake in Reliance Power.
Without the extraordinary item, the company’s profit grew around 5% to Rs 428 crore from Rs 408 crore in the same quarter last year. Its total operating income fell by 14% to Rs 5,296 crore, as compared to Rs 6,160 crore, in the corresponding quarter last year.
"Our engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business turnover is less compared to last year. We had a stupendous growth last year, it is tough to sustain that kind of growth. But we will close the year with around Rs 7,000 crore," said Lalit Jalan, chief executive officer, Reliance Infrastructure. The company’s EPC revenues fell around 37% to Rs 1,841 crore.
The EPC orderbook of the company stands at Rs 12,145 crore. R-Infra claims that there are 7-8 large projects in the funnel. These include incremental orders from Reliance Power’s Sasan power project, Chitrangi and also the imported coal-based Krishnapatnam project, which is currently seeking a tariff revision.
The company already has eight operational roads and two more are expected to be operational in the next two months. While three of its road projects based in the South are seeing double-digit traffic growth, yet another is seeing flat growth.
"In the cycle of a road project, there is never uniform growth. We look at it in 5-6 year period," said Jalan.
R-Infra restarted operations of its Delhi Airport Express metro line, which was shut seven months back over safety worries. The Mumbai metro line 1 has completed most of its civil construction work, and is expected to commission by the middle of the year.
