Stalled project revival:

PMO steps in to revive nine stalled road, power projects Sidhartha, TNN | Sep 23, 2015, 06.43AM IST inShare 18 Prime Minister Narendra Modi. NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister's Office has stepped in to get at least nine road and power projects moving as part of an exercise to revive stalled projects, which are putting a strain on developers as well as banks. On Thursday, Nripendra Misra, the principal secretary to PM Narendra Modi, will spend half a day with lenders and officials, who are trying to clear the roadblocks holding up these projects, sources said. On the agenda is to get at least five highway projects moving, including GurgaonJaipur, Panvel-Indapur, Srinagar-Banihal, QazigundBanihal and Chennai-Nashri. The Gurgaon-Jaipur project, for instance, is held up for years and is proving to be a major headache for traffic Source: PMG & company websites moving from the national Capital to the Pink City . Sources said while the developer is seeking more funds from the lenders, the banks are pointing out that the developer needs to find resources. There are at least seven trouble spots on the highway , including the Hero Honda Chowk, which requires large funding. Three of the five projects being taken up are in Jammu & Kashmir. Similarly, there are four power projects -Ratnagiri Gas and Power (popularly known as Dabhol), Coastal Gujarat Power, Avantha Seoni Power and KSK Mahanadi Thermal -where the PMO wants the issues to be resolved immediately . For instance, a roadmap for getting Dabhol moving once again has already been submitted to PMO, which includes splitting the company into two one led by NTPC to generate electricity and the other by GAIL to deal with gas. While Indian Railways is willing to buy the power from one of the units that would go on stream, there is inadequate gas supply to fire the plant. Although the government, starting with the UPA, has managed to clear hurdles faced by 312 projects -a majority were related to coal supply and environmental clearances -there are still 375 projects that are listed on the website of the Project Monitoring Group where problems need to be resolved.The pending projects would see an investment of almost Rs 20 lakh crore, although several such as those related to steel and other commodities as well as special economic zones are either expected to be shelved or delayed due to market conditions. Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device. more  

Still no sight of light at end of tunnel.... more  

Prime Minister’s Office takes charge to revive investment cycle Vikas Dhoot & Sugata Ghosh, ET Bureau Jul 9, 2015, 05.18AM IST Tags: UPA government|Tata Power Avantha Lanco GMR|Tata Power|Secretary|resolution|Minister’s Office|investments|Essar Power (Nripendra Misra met…) NEW DELHI | MUMBAI: The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has taken charge of reviving the investment cycle and unravelling banks' chronic non-performing assets on account of investment plans worth lakhs of crores of rupees that have got entangled in red tape over the past few years. Over the past three days, Principal Secretary in the PMO Nripendra Misra has held hectic, virtually day long parleys with bankers, project promoters, top ministry officials and chief secretaries of states to arrive at a swift resolution of the hurdles delaying big-ticket investments across sectors. Stuck projects of companies like Tata Power, Avantha, Lanco, GMR and Essar Power, among others were discussed. "Decision on as many as 22 projects were taken on Wednesday," a person aware of the development told ET. "There is a realisation at the highest level that the investment climate is still tepid and not much is moving on the ground in terms of developers commissioning fresh capacities or launching greenfield and brownfield projects," said a top government official privy to the development, adding that job creation would also remain subdued unless these projects are unshackled. The PMO is mining through the 410-odd stalled investment projects worth Rs 19.5 lakh crore that have sought and await an intervention from the project monitoring group in the cabinet secretariat. The group was set up by the UPA government in July 2013 to help negotiate hurdles holding up large investments. Officials from this group were present at these meetings. "This is a very focused and meaningful exercise where decisions are being taken with a clear roadmap outlined for each stalled project to be operationalised. When an issue is beyond the realm of possible solutions, it's being ruled out straight away rather than let it linger in suspense," said another official, who attended one of these meetings in the PMO this week. The revival of the investment climate through this repair job of stalled projects, however, is dependent on promoters' ability to bring in some fresh capital into projects so that they have some more skin in the game and it becomes possible to arrive at some middle ground between them and the lenders. While state chief secretaries and line ministries like power, railways and finance have been asked to expedite clearances and other issues in their domains that have been scuttling specific projects, in a few cases, promoters have also been asked to bring more funds onto the table to make the project viable rather than expect banks and financiers to take haircuts alone. "There are projects where developers have put up little equity and have left banks in the lurch citing lack of clearances, though in reality, their real concern is poor market condition and leveraged balance-sheets," said an official. FEATURED ARTICLES 10 best tax-saving investments Karnataka HC allows UBHL to sell around 13 million shares of USL Ambitious 10-year plan: How Cyrus Mistry plans to have more TCS-like giants in the Tata Group More: India's first e-reader Wink unveiled, supporting 15 languages Fed warns of catastrophe if $14.3-trn debt limit not raised Tableau Software, Atlassian prepare for IPO amid market woes Hyundai: Price war under way in US car market PM Narendra Modi's US visit: Eight highlights What central government employees can expect from the 7th Pay Commission more  

Gas sector bottlenecks and coal sector bottlenecks need to be solved on war footing.... more  

Execution of projects remain slow.. more