Broke MSRDC in market for Rs 13,000 crore loan to begin project

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has no funds to construct or even acquire land for the construction of the 701-km-long Mumbai Nagpur Super Expressway. It will need around Rs 13,000 crore to acquire land for the project for which it has sought a loan from several state government bodies. Many financial institutes have agreed to fund the construction as well.

The MSRDC is quite optimistic about managing to raise funds for the initial stages and is also hoping the state government will manage to get some financial assistance from the Central government for the project.

Kiran Kurundkar, joint managing director, MSRDC, said, “We recently managed to obtain a loan worth Rs 1,800 crore from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO). We have been in talks with the state government and are very confident of raising the 30 per cent, which is our contribution, for the land acquisition.”

The Chief Minister’s office (CMO) had directed five government bodies, namely the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority (Mhada), the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO), the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) to lend Rs 1,000 crore at least to MSRDC for the project. The MMRDA has approved the loan for a period of ten years at an interest rate of eight per cent.

The total estimated cost of the 700-km-long Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway is Rs 46,000 crore, of which 70 per cent of the funds is expected to be generated from national and international banks. The remaining 30 per cent has to be raised by MSRDC. Of the five government bodies, the MMRDA has already approved the loan of Rs 1,000 crore. The state needs around 10,000 hectares of land for the construction of the Expressway.