The proverbial lack of sweetener in PPP projects has started showing its effect the Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's dream project, the IT City, has hit a hurdle with only one bidder, HCl Enterprise, expressing interest in the project.
Saturday was the last day for the opening of the tender for the IT City but as only one bidder HCl Enterprises came, it has now been extended for another week till November 30. Recently the Chief Minister had admitted that lack of sweetener by the state government , no private companies are showing any interest in the construction work in the state. Earlier this month, the 270-kms Agra- lucknow Greenfield Expressway, another dream project of the CM, had no takers as not a single private construction came forward for theproject to be constructed under Public-Private Participation model.
The Rs 9000 crore, access controlled project would have dramatically halved the travelling time between Agra and lucknow. But contrary toperception, none of the five companies -- Essel Infrastructure, Reliance Infrastructure ltd, Jaypee Group, Il&FS and Indus Concessions India--which had submitted technical bids, have come forward.
Senior officials confirmed that only one company has expressed interest in bidding for the IT project so far and the deadline for the bidders have been extended so that at least a few more bidders should join the race for the project. The 100-acre IT City comes up on Chak Ganjariya farms in lucknow targeting 25,500 jobs and the government has allowed only top IT majors in the country to participate in the bidding process. This, though, is not the first time the bidding date has been pushed earlier too, following the pre-bid queries, the government had made certain relaxations to the bid documents to allow real estate companies and ITmajors to participate in the bid together, in a 60-40 ratio.
The Centre has already granted Special Economic Zone status to the IT City project in lucknow. Once implemented, IT companies will be offered sops in keeping with the state's IT Policy 2012, which focuses on skill development and employment generation capability. Among key provisions of the policy, UP will offer a 5 per cent interest subsidy to all new IT industries that set up shop in UP. In an attempt to attract more industries into the state, the policy has also offered land at a 25 per cent discounted price and special permission from the department of labour to run IT businesses seven days a week.