Unido Offers Expertise For Road, Port Projects

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) has offered to share its expertise for developing road and port projects on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis in the country.

Unidos country director Wilfred S Nanayakara told the inaugural session of a three-day Unido-sponsored BOT workshop on roads and ports yesterday that the organisation has gained world-wide experience on BOT projects including the technical and financing aspects apart from evolving the overall strategy and the certification procedures. India too could benefit from some Unido assistance, he said.

Surface transport secretary Yogendra Narain, who inaugurated the meet, said that keeping in view the enormous fund requirement for the development of the sectors, it is imperative to tap the domestic capital market for the purpose. He said the success stories in the infrastructure sector all over the world have shown that it is the domestic capital and the domestic investors which constitute the backbone of such projects.

 

But in India, he said, no serious attempt has been made to tap domestic capital to finance infrastructure projects.

This is a challenge for established financial institutions like Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Services (IL&FS) and Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) because ultimately domestic problems must have indigenous answers, Narain said.

He said that the state-owned National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), whose capital base has been expanded from Rs 200 crore in 1996-97 to Rs 500 crore in the current fiscal, would float a tax-free bond of Rs 40 crore this year, a sanctioned amount which could not be floated in the previous year.

Another important factor is quick decision on the part of the concerned officials who need specialised training to reorient themselves to the new privatisation culture, Narain said.

The surface transport secretary said that no less than Rs 1,000 crore is required annually for rehabilitation and maintenance of roads.

Another Rs 50,000 crore is required to build additional capacity at the ports to enable them to handle the projected 850 million tonnes of traffic by the end of the 11th five-year plan. The government can barely afford half of this sum, hence the rest must be sourced from the private sector, he said.The workshop was organised by National Highway Authority of Indiaand the surface transport ministry under the aegis of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation .

Participants included financial institutions, private investors, consultants besides experts from Unido.