Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Nath invites Malaysian cos to invest in highways sector

Nath invites Malaysian cos to invest in highways sector
The Financial Express, January 5, 2010, Page 11

Press Trust of India, Kuala Lumpur

India has achieved construction of 9 -km roads per day and the target of developing 20-km daily would be accomplished by this April, road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath said here on Monday.

‘‘We have reached 9-km per day of road construction and will hit our target of 20-km a day by April,’’ Nath, who is here to invite the Malaysian companies to enter the highway construction sector in India, said.

As many as 35 Malaysian companies are already involved with various infrastructure projects in India.

To have a 20-km of road construction a day or 7,000 km of roads a year, there has to be 20,000 km of work in progress, he noted.

The minister said between November 2009 and June 2010 contracts worth $20 billion would have been awarded. Referring to land acquisition, he noted that states would also need to address the issue. The transport and highways minister stressed that mega infrastructure projects would not be awarded to small companies.

‘‘Medium-sized companies should take more jobs and aspire to become bigger. If small companies take big projects I may not have the roads,’’ he said, adding such companies may not even be able to get finances.

‘‘We don’t want companies to take on more than they can chew. We also don’t want hoarding of contracts,’’ he added.

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