Clearing stalled projs by May 26 a step in right direction: NCC

With Road Minister Nitin Gadkari promising that there will be no stalled projects when the Narendra Modi government completes two years in office on May 26, YD Murthy, executive vice-president - finance, NCC, says stalled projects can be revived and NHAI and the road ministry have taken a step in the right direction.

According to him, the main problem with stalled projects are issues related to land acquisition and lack of clearances.

He says NCC as a policy monetises mature projects and the proceeds from that are used for new projects.Below is the verbatim transcript of YD Murthy’s interview with Anuj Singhal and Ekta Batra on CNBC-TV18.Anuj: You would have heard the minister, would you share the optimism?A: Yes, it is a right step in the right direction and the stalled projects can be revived and the road transport minister and NHAI have taken the right step. It will be good for the country if the projects are all completed and it is not difficult to achieve also so we welcome the step but fortunately we don’t have any stalled projects so beyond that I cannot say anything.Ekta: When you do talk about stalled projects, what is the main impediment that they are facing at this point?A: Mostly these are land acquisitions issues, maybe some clearances are not there or things like that. However, the government of the day has got the capability to solve this one by one and that is what the minister is doing. It is a very good thing for the Indian economy.Anuj: Let me rephrase the questioning then. You have been selling your road assets, would you be changing your mind now, would you think that going forward maybe the business would be lucrative again?A: Our game plan is different, what we are talking about is the matured assets, which have been completed, which are generating revenues and it is our policy to monetise these assets and generate cash and with those monies enter into new projects.Ekta: Your Bangalore toll-way road assets plus your Western UP toll-way project is still expected to come in, in terms of funds for you. How much can we expect by when from these two projects and what is in the pipeline in terms of further monetisation in order to reduce debt?A: The Bangalore elevated toll-way and also the Western UP toll-way, we have sent the definitive agreements with the incoming investor but the money is yet to be received. We are confident, maybe in the next two months, these monies will be received. Together we are getting nearly Rs 200 crore from sale of our stake in both these assets.Ekta: What is your further plan on monetisation? A: BOT we have limited exposure and wherever possible, we are monetising. The power asset we already sold to Sembcorp  and we got that money up to Rs 100 crore already which has been used for debt reduction. Likewise when the road asset money is received, similar thing is going to happen. Other than this, we don’t have any plans to monetise any other BOT assets at present. For full interview, watch accompanying video(Interview transcribed by Priyanka Deshpande)