New Delhi, Feb 12: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has started appraising the Harihar-Tumkur stretch on NH-4 for extending the $260-million loan sought by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The bank has also approved procurement action for the project prior to extending the loan. This means that NHAI can begin pre-qualification work for the project. The authority has already invited tenders for pre-qualification of the EPC contractor for the project which involves four-laning the 260-km stretch on NH-4.A special feature of this loan is that the authority will get the $260-million loan through the government guarantee route. This means that the loan will be paid back by the government in lieu of the authority doing it directly.
The government will also bear the forex risk on the loan, which will be a single currency loan with 5-7 years grace period and 20-30 years maturity. It may be noted that all externally-funded projects have 20-30 per cent counter-funding.
This means that the ADB will provide for about 80 per cent of the project cost while the balance will have to borne by the authority, for which the authority can either resort to tolling or source it from government grants.
This will be the second ADB loan that the NHAI will be getting, while the first loan of $180 million was given in August last for the Surat-Manor project. Since it is a high density stretch, the bank did not insist on a government guarantee and instead agreed for the dis-intermediation route.
The ADB is funding the entire Rs 4,104-crore Western transport corridor of the Tumkur-Haveri stretch on NH-4. The ADB-funded Western transport corridor has been divided into five packages namely, 42-km of the Tumkur-Sira section ($40 million), 67-km of the Sira-Chitradurga section ($66 million), 18-km of the Chitradurga section ($18 million), 77-km of the Chitradurga-Harihar section ($76 million) and the 56-km Harihar-Haveri section ($55 million).
Four-laning the 84-km Haveri-Maharashtra border section of NH-4 would be in two packages - 64-km of the Haveri-Hubli section costing Rs 260 crore, and the remaining 84-km which includes the Belgaum bypass, costing Rs 120 crore. The NH-4 connects Chennai to Mumbai-Thane and forms the Western corridor of the Golden Quadrilateral, which is part of the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP). Of the Rs 54,000-crore required for the NHDP, the authority plans to raise Rs 20,000 crore from external agencies like the World Bank, ADB and OECF. NHAI is also negotiating a $500-million loan with the World Bank. It has already got the first tranche of $516 million from the ADB for the Third National Highway World Bank Project in June last.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
