GMR's fin closure for fourth road project complete

Bangalore, Oct 18: GMR Group Consortium, comprising of GMR Infrastructure Ltd and GMR Energy Ltd, has achieved the financial closure for the 73 km-long Tindivanam-Ulundurpet road project in Tamil Nadu at a capital cost Rs 795 crore.

The total capital cost has been met by way of equity and debt with the debt component at Rs 596.25 crore syndicated by ICICI Bank Ltd in tie-up with ten bankers including Andhra Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Central Bank of India as lead lender.

The equity component is Rs 198.75 crore, the company said in a statement.

The Group had achieved four financial closures in a row during the current fiscal year comprising of Ambala-Chandigarh road project, Farukhnagar-Jadcherla road project, Adloor Yellareddy - Pochanpalli road project along with this Tindivanam- Ulundurpet road project all within the time stipulated under the concession agreement signed in April this year.

The four projects worth about Rs 2,347 crore were currently under implementation.

The consortium received a sanction of Rs 850 crore from the participating banks against debt requirement of Rs 596.25 crore.

The door to door tenure of loan is 16 years against the concession period of 20 years.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) invited bids from the empanelled short-listed road development agencies for the improvement, operations and maintenance of the NH-45 section between Tindivanam and Ulundurpet in Tamil Nadu.

GMR consortium won the bid for strengthening and widening of the existing two lane road to four lane dual carriageway measuring a total length of 73 kms on a BOT (Toll) basis for a concession period of two decades.

The Group entered into the roads sector when the government invited bids to develop India's roads under the Golden Quadrilateral Scheme in early 2000.

The Group has already completed the four laning of the highways between Tuni-Anakapalli on NH-5 in Andhra Pradesh for a distance of 60 km and between Tambaram-Tindivanam for a distance of 93 km in Tamil Nadu.

Canara Bank, IDBI Ltd, IIFCL, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and ICICI Bank were the other banks in the syndicated loan for the company's fourth project.

UNI