CCEA widens highways with Rs 6k cr
Financial Express

The government on Thursday approved six-laning of 838 km of national highways—Gurgaon-Jaipur, Surat-Dahisar, Panipat-Jalandhar and Chilkaluripet- Vijaywada—at an estimated cost of Rs 5,610.77 crore.

The work would be executed on a design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) basis under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) phase-V under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, finance minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs meeting.

The six-laning of 225.6 km Gurgaon-Kotputli-Jaipur in Haryana/Rajasthan on NH-8 will be done at an estimated cost of Rs 1,517 crore, while an estimated Rs 2,198 crore will be spent on six-laning of 291 km Panipat-Jalandhar national highway.

The six-laning of 239 km Surat-Dahisar national highway will cost Rs 1,355.47 crore and 82.5 km Chilkaluripet-Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh has been projected to cost Rs 540.30 crore.

The government also approved modifications to the Rs 698 crore special package for livestock and fisheries in the 31 identified suicide-prone districts suggested by the beneficiary states, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.

The package, announced last year, is to be implemented over a period of three years from 2006-07 and consists a budgetary support of Rs 510.79 crore and credit component of Rs 187.21 crore.

Overall, there is no additional financial implication and these modifications will lead to effective implementation of the Special Package, Chidambaram said.

The government also approved placement of the contract with Arianespace (of Europe) for the launching of GSAT-8/INSAT-4G at a price not exceeding $ 67.5 million, along with an option for on additional launch and also waiver of the Bank Guarantee requirements.

This will facilitate the timely launch of GSAT-8/INSAT-4G in 2008-09 timeframe.

GSAT-8/INSAT-4G will provide 18 high power Ku-band (DTH quality) transponders to the INSAT System along with the second Geo Stationary augmentation payload for the GPS and GEO Augmented navigation. This will facilitate a number of services in the field of navigation, telecommunications, TV broadcasting and distribution, Ku-band VSAT, broadband services, digital video broadcast, rural areas communications and distance education.