ERA Infra wins Rs 1020 cr NHAI order; completion in 3yrs

L Khushu, chief executive officer of ERA Infra spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the infrastructure space and the way forward for the company.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: With the contract from NHAI worth Rs 1020 crore, where does your order book stand  and when can we see execution?
A: This project is 93.22 km long and it is falling in the state of UP and Uttarakhand. We are expecting to sign the concession agreement by middle of January, and after six months we will do the financial closure. In this case, we are thinking of doing the financial closure little earlier, so maybe we can start the project by end of April. Q: How are the margins in this project because what one heard from a lot of road contracting awards lately is that there is not enough EPC contracting work anyway to go around, so projects are being bid at thinner and thinner margins, how would the margin work out for this one?
A: Actually if you see our project pipeline, for last year, we did not bag any of the NHAI contracts because of this problem. But over the past few months now, the situation has improved, and the concessionaires have come to an understanding that they have to put good margins on the project. We had bid for so many projects within the margins we wanted to have, but we couldn