A consortium consisting of the Kalyani group, US-based Vanasse Hangen Brushin Inc and SAB Engineering has bagged the Rs 1318.7 crore Mysore-Bangalore corridor (super expressway) project in southern Karnataka.
The land acquisition process for the project is underway, a top state government official said. The financing of the project will be mostly through internal resources, he added.
The project envisages construction of seven townships along the 110 km-corridor, besides industrial, tourism, heritage, communication and agricultural centres.
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The corridor, which is scheduled to be completed by 2005, will be separate from the exisiting Mysore-Bangalore road and will pass through 50 bridges.
The Kalyani group has already bagged the Hubli-Dharwad bypass project in the northern part of the state.
The state government which opened up the road sector for private participation, has earmarked the 40 km-Bangalore-Hosur road for a six-lane expressway, Bangalore north bypass, Bangalore south bypass, ring road for Bangalore metropolis, three flyovers in Bangalore and bypass for four mahor towns in the state for private sector participation.
At present, the state government has a total of 1,22,430 km network of roads.
Of these 1.6 per cent are national highways, 9 per cent of state highways and 23 per cent of major district roads.
On the national highways, there has been a 20 per cent increase in traffic each year, and on the state highways, the annual growth has been 25 per cent. But in the past two decades, the road network has expanded at an average rate of 2.6 per cent per year.
The new policy on infrastructure states that infrastructure projects will be offered to the private sector through open competitive bidding. However, the government will consider executing a memorandum of understanding in either of the following circumstances:
l Where the investor proposes a project which is of a visionary nature or which is totally new in conception;
l Where the investor on his own initiative proposes a project which the government has not cotemplated offering to the private sector because it does not appear to be commercially viable.
In all such cases the agreement will be valid for a limited period during which the investor will have to achieve agreed objectives, such as preparation of a tehcno-economic feasibility report. Further, it will require the investor to follow internationally accepted practices, such as competitive bidding for construction contracts.
The state government under the single window agency has uptill February 1998 cleared a total investment of 809.45 crore. The investment cleared by the highpower committee uptill February 1998 has been 6004.86 crore.
Foreign direct investment approval for the state uptill May 1997 has been 1,541.5 crore.