Revenue hike: HMDA a step closer to leasing out ORR

HYDERABAD: As many as four consultants have submitted their proposal for traction advisor-cum-technical consultants service for leasing out the 158-km Nehru Outer Ring Road (ORR) to private concessionaire for long lease on Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT)  basis.The list of consultants who qualify the technical and financial bids, would be sent to the State government by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) for approval of the successful bidder. The main objective of the TA-cum-technical consultants is to establish the technical, economical, and financial viability of the project and prepare project reports for maintenance and rehabilitation of the assets along the ORR.

The HMDA move aims at raising revenues by leasing out the 158-km Nehru Outer Ring Road (ORR) to private concessionaire for 15-20 years.  Through the TOT model, the authority is expecting to collect about `2,500 crore to `3,000 crore. Further, the corpus generated from proceeds of such projects would be utilised by State government to meet its fund requirements.

Project viability
The viability of the project has to be established by TA taking into account the requirements with regard to operation and maintenance, major maintenance works rehabilitation and improvement based on highway design, pavement design, rehabilitation of existing structures, quantities of various items of works and cost estimates and financial analysis, HMDA officials said.

The selected consultant should ensure that the detailed project preparation incorporated aspects of value engineering, quality audit and safety audit requirement in design and implementation. 
Currently, the HMDA offers O&M contracts on yearly basis. The concessionaire will perform routine or periodic inspections and identify the maintenance requirements for the ORR as well as the structures. 

Technical bids to be evaluated by experts
The consultants who have submitted their proposal for traction advisor-cum-technical consultants service include PriceWaterhouse Coopers consortium, M/s Feedback Infra Equiris (JV), M/s Stup Consultants Pvt Ltd, and Capital Fortunes (JV). Their technical bids will be evaluated by an expert team. The entire exercise would be completed by the end of this week.