Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the long overdue airport project at Navi Mumbai on Sunday.
Overdue Airport Project :
Our Prime Minister of country Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the long overdue airport project at Navi Mumbai on Sunday. PM Modi said, “Issue of Navi Mumbai airport has been pending for years. And, this is not the only project that is pending. When I assumed office I realised there were several such projects. That is why we began a Pragati initiative and gave priority to completion of projects.”
“In our country, nearly 450 planes are operational. 900 new planes will be bought this year. Aviation sector is moving ahead,” he further said.
On the key issue of financing, the biggest challenge for any of the debt-laden infrastructure majors in the country today, GVK does not seem to anticipate problems. The first phase of Navi Mumbai Airport is expected to cost around Rs 6,000 crore.
The internal accruals of the current Mumbai International airport are sufficient to take care of the equity requirements. Going by the project cost, this would incur equity requirements to the tune of around Rs 1,200 crore.
For rest, GVK would raise debt from the banks and, going by our sources, the banks seem more than willing to participate.
For GVK, which has nearly stopped bidding for new projects and is focused on looking at various ways to prune its debt – its total debt today is around Rs 23,000 crore. Though when calculated, as per the new Indian accounting standard IndAs, it comes to around Rs 15,000 crore.
The Navi Mumbai airport project is the only major project it is taking up recently. This perhaps has to do with the economics and its potential of the project, apart from GVK having the first right of refusal in the project.