No developer touches 12 govt projects

The developers had to submit the proposals between January 8 and 10.

The project was first advertised in May 2007 and was based on a Private Public Partnership model to strengthen the urban infrastructure of initially eight cities — Lucknow,Ghaziabad,Meerut,Kanpur,Agra,Aligarh,Allahabad and Varanasi.

On December 31,the cabinet approved 12 projects for six cities — Lucknow,Ghaziabad,Agra,Allahabad,Varanasi and Kanpur — which were to be taken up in the first phase.

The government is now planning to talk to the developers and learn about the problems. Principal Secretary for Housing and Urban Planning Sri Krishna said: “It is surprising that no developer has submitted a proposal for any of these projects,though many had submitted the Requests for Qualification.”

In an attempt to justify the poor response,Krishna said: “This might be because of the recession. Private developers may be facing some problems in mobilising investment for such big projects.”

The government had appointed two consultants — Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited and Darashaw & Company Private Limited — for identifying the content of the plan and invite investors for the projects.

In November 2007,the government received 309 technical bids,and shortlisted less than 100 developers to submit the proposals.

The projects include an international convention centre,a super-specialty hospital and an international sports complex in Lucknow; a hospital and a ring road in Agra; three multi-storied car parkings in Ghaziabad and Allahabad; a Transport Nagar in Varanasi and a super-specialty hospital in Kanpur. The total cost was estimated over Rs 2,200 crore.

The state cabinet had also decided that the developers will have to complete these projects in 24 months and will be allowed to run the projects for the next 35 years to recover their investment.