Govt clears 3000 km new road projects, to set up regulatory authority: Chidambaram

New Delhi: Assuring a balancing act, the Finance Minister P Chidambaram disclosed the government's plan of allotting 3000 km of new road projects to the country's six prime states.

Mumbai, India (prHWY.com) March 1, 2013 - New Delhi: Assuring a balancing act, the Finance Minister P Chidambaram disclosed the government's plan of allotting 3000 km of new road projects to the country's six prime states. The outlined projects will be executed at Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, wherein the projects will be fully complete within the first six months of 2013-14 period.

The government also plans to set up a road regulatory authority to address the hiccups faced by the country's road sector. "Challenges not envisaged earlier including financial stress, enhanced construction risk and contract management issues are best addressed by an independent authority... hence the government has decided to constitute a regulatory authority for the road sector," said the minister while delivering his Budget 2013 speech.

The prime objectives to be executed by the regulatory authority involves tariff setting, regulation of service quality, assessment of concessionaire claims, collection and dissemination of sector information, service-level benchmarks and monitoring compliance of concession agreements.

Further, extending the focus to establish improved connectivity in remote locations and for developing cross-border networks, the Finance Minister disclosed the first pace of the UPA government's 'Look East' policy. The minister also proposed requests to multilateral development banks to improve regional connectivity initiatives. "Combining the 'Look East' policy and the interests of the North Eastern States, I propose to seek the assistance of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to build roads in the North Eastern States and connect them to Myanmar," adds Chidambaram.

The initiatives though aroused some appraisal in the Parliament's Lower House, a considerable acceleration was seen in the stock indices of the companies involved in the road construction business. Stock rates of companies like IRB Infra and Jaiprakash Associates witnessed good demand soon after the announcement; wherein IRB Infra's stocks rallied up by 2.42% to Rs120.70 while that of Jaiprakash Associates gained 2.29% rise to Rs73.85. Shares of engineering giant Larsen and Toubro, also witnessed a rise of 0.68% to Rs 1,420.10.

EPC News Bureau

###

Tag Words: epcworld news

Categories: Business

Press Release Contact
EPC News Bureau
303, 3rd Floor, Hilton Centre, Sector - 11, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai - 400614
Tel : 91 22 41610808 Fax : 91 22 27577770
Email : marketing@epcworld.in

Link To This Press Release:

URL HTML Code