PMO sets deadline for infra projects in first steering committee meet

The committee has given a push to major Railway Projects

In an effort to speed up the sluggish pace of the key infrastructure projects, the Steering Committee that met on July 19 has set deadline for key infrastructure projects. The concerned departments and ministries are told to appoint nodal officers of a joint secretary rank to look after the project development who would submit weekly reports to the PMO.

The Mumbai Rail Corridor project for which state support agreement is yet to be finalized has set the deadline for 31 January, 2014. It is expected that state support agreement and further developments on the projects will be seen by this date. The Steering Committee has also agreed that Ministry of Railways will come up with a decision on whether the RFQ will be re-issued within a week.

For the Locomotive projects in Madhepura and Marhowra a deadline of 30 January, 2014 has been set. The bidding process for the PPP project is expected to start by July end.

On the Dedicated Eastern freight corridor for a stretch of 125 km between Sonnagar-Mugulsarai is to be funded by Ministry of Railways and a stretch of 550 km between Dankuni to Sonnagar would be completed under the PPP model. The ministry is required to come up with exact deadlines for both these projects. 

A deadline of 31 March 2014 has been set for Durgarajapatnam Port in Nellore district. Acquisition of 5000 acres of land is expected to be allocated in initial phase of this project costing about Rs 8,000 crore.