3 Feb, 2008, 1745 hrs IST,
MUMBAI: Infrastructure major GMR Group is looking at lucrative opportunities of developing railway stations in the country in the event of their being privatised, a senior company official said.
"Privatisation of railway stations is being proposed, though the configuration of how this will be done has not yet been decided. We are, however, very interested in this business," GMR's CFO, Strategic Finance, Ashutosh Agarwala, said here.
With the freight corridor (Delhi-Mumbai) now imminent, GMR scents an immense opportunity in this segment. "However, we need to have a clear framework ready before we can begin to move forward," Agarwala said.
On ports privatisation, which has now picked up momentum in the country, Agarwala said that "it was a good business and the group would look at this sector as and when an opportunity comes up."
Presently, the group is not active in ports development. The group has, however, emerged as a big player in the airport development space and is presently developing the Delhi and Hyderabad airports. The southern city's airport is expected to be up and running by March 16 while the new runway at the Delhi airport would be ready by June.
GMR has already expressed its intention to bid for the modernisation of Prague airport in East Europe when it comes up for a likely bidding by the middle of this year. The group has already spread its wings overseas by winning the bid for the modernisation of Turkey's Sabiha Gocken airport recently.
On GMR's auto and IT SEZ at Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu Agarwala said that work on the 3,300-acre project was on track.
He pegged the investment in basic infrastructure here at around Rs 2,300 crore and the overall cost of development, including social infrastructure, at around Rs 11,000 crore.
"Land here mostly belongs to the government and is non-agricultural and hence the land acquisition process was easy. We plan to start allocating plots to interested parties in the next one-to-one-and-a-half years," Agarwala said.
Being in close proximity to Bangalore and Hosur, IT and auto hubs respectively, the SEZ would focus primarily on both these segments, though units of other sectors too would find a place here, he said.
"It is a multi-product SEZ," Agarwala said. GMR is also presently constructing two SEZs in Hyderabad of 250 acres each. One is planned as an aviation SEZ while the other is a multi-product one but with a strong focus on IT and bio-tech segments, Agarwala said.
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