The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has created a pipeline of projects worth Rs 8 lakh crore which will be awarded over the next three years, as the government begins the exercise of creating a national infrastructure pipeline to make India a $5-trillion economy over the next five years.
The finance ministry in September this year announced the setting up of a high level task force to identify infrastructure projects to drive Rs 100-lakh-crore investment in the sector by 2024-25.
Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate is in talks with HDFC Capital Advisors, the real estate fund management arm of HDFC, and International Finance Corporation (IFC) separately, to float a platform to invest and develop low-cost homes across the country, sources said.
Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said that the economy could grow at 6-6.5% in 2019-20 or FY20, revising his earlier estimate of 7% in the Economic Survey.
T V Narendran, CEO and managing director of Tata Steel, and Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director of JSW Steel, have taken upon themselves the task of dispelling certain myths about the Indian steel industry, in particular that the mills here do not come up to world standards in terms of product quality and costs.
Narendran said that some steel mills here would easily pass off as “globally competitive and efficient within their premises. But much of that advantage gets compromised when they step outside their factory gates” for procurement of raw materials and egression of finished steel products.
This is because the environment outside mill premises where logistics come into play is largely within the realm of government, both at the Centre and in states.
In order to reduce the dependence on the heavily pressured infrastructure, some steel groups, specially Essar and JSW, are putting reliance on environment friendly and cost-effective movement of iron ore through pipeline from mines to mills.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India was to invest $1.3 trillion in infrastructure in the next few years. This was in an attempt to present the country in a favourable light among potential foreign investors.
Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT), the facility run by Singapore’s PSA International Pte Ltd at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) near Mumbai, handled its one millionth twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last week, becoming the fastest to reach the feat for a terminal in India.
By one estimate, the unsold inventory across India is still upwards of 10 lakh units valued at a staggering Rs 6 lakh crore. Most developers are financially strapped and, therefore, struggling to either complete projects or clear inventories. Even those that are better off, less than 5% of the universe, aren’t too optimistic about selling much. So, the launches will be limited.