Entrepreneurs to hold talks for ethanol plants in BIHAR

In a bid to make Bihar an ethanol hub, the state government has attracted joint venture of some South East Asian entrepreneurs and an Indian entrepreneur who are to meet the state officials here on June 23 to work out the modalities for establishment of plants for production of ethanol directly from sugar cane and maize.

The State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) has given a nod for such investment and joint venture, named Indian Gasohol, to tap the vast agriculture base of the state for growing more sugar cane as cash crop in 10 districts of the state to ensure its industrial growth through production of ethanol which would be sold to the petroleum companies for blending with petrol.

The Indian Gasohol will establish plants for production of ethanol directly from maize in four districts, according to a senior official of industries department. He added that this industrial venture would generate huge employment.

The Gasohol has planned to go for 25,000 tonnes sugar cane crushing everyday through the 10 plants in 10 districts.

The state government has already requested the Central government to amend the sugar control order by which it had recently banned direct production of ethanol from sugar cane, according to industries minister Dinesh Chandra Yadav. The government of India has already made a mandatory provision for blending of five per cent ethanol with petrol. The Bihar government had decided to make Bihar an ethanol hub to convert its agriculture potential to industrial potential.

The Gasohol would also export ethanol and this would spur industrial development in the state for which the SIPB is trying for, some officials said. The state government has to offer the farmland of Bihar State Sugar Development Corporation at Navanagar in Buxar district to the Gasohol to establish its sugar cane-based ethanol plant.

The Gasohol has sought permission to establish sugar cane-based ethanol plants in Buxar, Aurangabad, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Bikramganj (Rohtas), Gaya, Munger, Araria and Nalanda districts. It is seeking to establish maize-based ethanol plant in four districts, including Vaishali, Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur districts, sources said.

NTPC signs PPA with GRIDCO for supply of eclectricity from Barh Project

National Thermal Power Corporation Limited has signed a power purchase agreement with GRIDCO for supply of power from its 1320 MW Barh Project Stage-II in New Delhi.

The agreement was signed by Mr AC Mallick director commercial of GRIDCO and Mr SN Goel GM commercial of NTPC in the presence of Mr IJ Kapoor ED commercial of NTPC.

NTPC Barh Stage II project is being set up by NTPC in Bihar, the power from the project shall be supplied to the States of Eastern, Northern and Western Region. This is in addition to 1980 MW Barh stage I being set up by NTPC. On completion the project will be the largest power station of NTPC in the Eastern Region.

Bombardier, Alstom in fray for Rlys` unit in Madhepura Bihar

Global electric locomotive manufacturers - Bombardier Transportation, Alstom and Siemens from Europe and Kawasaki, Toshiba, Mitsubhishi and Mitsui from Japan - have shown interest in participating in the Indian Railways' ambitious Rs 2,000 crore project to set up an electric locomotive factory at Madhepura, Bihar.

The project will be implemented on a private-public partnership basis. The Railways will pick up a maximum of 26 per cent equity stake in a special purpose vehicle to be floated for the purpose. The remaining equity will come from the foreign partner.

The initial capital cost of the factory, as estimated by the Indian Railways, is Rs 1,000 crore. But industry experts say that the actual cost could go up in the range of Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500 crore factoring in to account the increase in the prices of critical components like steel, iron, cement, fuel among others.

The top international companies were all present in a pre-application conference, which was held at Rail Bhawan on Friday.

Rajeev Jyoti, MD, Bombardier Transportation, said, "We are very eager to associate with the project. Since the agreement will be for a long-term basis, we will have to carefully evaluate the commercial, legal and technical aspects before participating in the bidding process."

Similarly, a top executive of Alstom Transportation, who did not want to be named, also expressed interest in participating in the proposed project. The factory will be set up on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis for the production and supply of a minimum of 660 locomotives over a period of eight years. and undertake maintenance thereof for a period of up to 20 years.

The Indian railways will be subscribing to its equity for up to a maximum of 26 per cent of the issued and paid up equity capital of the company,subject to a maximum of Rs 100 crore.

A Rail Bhawan official said that the project is receiving a good response from global locomotive manufacturers and they are expecting a minimum of 5-6 major players in the final bidding process.

The due date for the application of request for qualification (RFQ) is on July 18, 2008 and the shortlisting of applicants will be done within 15 days from the application due date.

With the commissioning of the project, railway officials say that the Indian railway will be upgrading its technology to the next generation, where the new locomotive which will have 12,000 horsepower will have the capacity to pull a higher pay load at a much higher speed of 100 km per hour. This will enable the Indian Railways to cut down their operational and maintenance cost.

thereby increasing productivity. Currently, Railways operate electric locomotives with 6000 horsepower capacity having a speed of 80 km per hour.

Ruia plans giant sugar unit in Bihar

Kolkata based P K Ruia Group, which also manages Dunlop India and Jessop India, would be building what it claimed would be the largest greenfield sugar complex in the country at Shariyatpur in East Champaran district of Bihar.
The Rs 800 crore project along with the capacity of crushing 10,000 ton of cane per day, would also include an ethanol manufacturing unit with a daily capacity of 240 kilolitres and a 50MW power plant.

The project would require 180 acres and 102 acres had already been acquired.

"We are keeping space for expanding the ethanol manufacturing capacity to 700-1000 kilolitres a day, if the state government allows the production of ethanol directly from the cane," said Pawan Kumar Ruia, chairman of the Ruia Group on the sidelines of a clourful foundation stone laying ceremony of the plant which was graced by several central government dignitaries and four elephants belonging to a local politician.

Out of Rs 800 crore project cost, Rs 120 crore would come from the sugar development fund (SDF), Rs 130 crore would be promoters' contribution and the remaining Rs 550 crore would be raised through bank loans.

This is the second sugar mill of the group after Kamlampur Sugar and Industries Ltd at Uttar Pradesh, which has a daily capacity of crushing 4000 ton of canes.

The chairman added that the company was keen to set up sugar mills in other parts of the country as well.

Later, Ruia said that the group company Falcon Tyres Ltd was planning to set up a factory as a greenfield project near Mysore.

"We have already identified land for the plant," Ruia said.

The estimated cost for the Falcon project was around Rs 500 crore and the capacity of the plant would be in the region of 150 ton a day.

"The plant would be near Mysore and the total cost of the project is likely to be in the region of Rs 500 crore," he added.

Bihar ready with info super highway

PATNA: Aspiring to join the league of developed states of the country, Bihar is ready to take a major leap in this direction at least on one front. It is ready with its information super highway, which will connect all the blocks, subdivisions and districts with the state headquarters.

Being implemented under the National e-governance programme (NEGP), this information highway has two components -- G2G (government to government) and G2C (government to citizen). While state wide area network (SWAN) has been developed for the G2G services, common service centre (CSC) will be developed under the G2C component.

SWAN will work as the backbone of this information super highway and 2 Mbps leased lines hired from the BSNL will allow communication between the state headquarters and the far-flung block offices in real time. This will also allow to have the facility of video conferencing. As SWAN will work through leased lines, high speed data transfer too would be possible once its functioning starts in full swing.

As the NEGP envisages developing only a vertical link with block offices being the last point of communication, the state government has added one horizontal component as well in its upcoming information super highway and there are plans to take this link down to the panchayat level on the one hand and to develop connectivity between various offices on the other. There are also plans to use widescale use of Wi-Fi and Wi Max technologies for glitch free net connectivity at this level.

A data centre has been created at the Technology Bhawan, Patna, and it will work as an information hub and a data repository for the whole state. This hub, in turn, has been connected with the main secretariat, new secretariat, Sinchai Bhawan, Visvesvaraya Bhawan, Soochna Bhawan and the CM's residential office through the secretariat local area network (SecLAN) so that relevant information are available at all important points and their connectivity with lowest level of administration offices are on line.

Being implemented under the supervision of the Bihar State Electronic Development Corporation, also known as BELTRON, the information super highway is at present under the test run and 10 districts of the state are likely to be connected with it from April 1 this year.

"Nalanda, Begusarai, Muzaffarpur and West Champaran are among the 10 districts which would be connected with this information highway from April this year, while connectivity of rest of the districts with this highway will be established by the end of this year," said P C Choudhary, technical secretary to Beltron managing director. He said that while SWAN has been developed from the Rs 256 crore fund provided by the Centre under the NEGP, the horizontal network is being developed by the fund provided by the state government.

Choudhary said that the objective behind developing this highway is to ensure effective governance and reduce time taken in communication between field offices and the state headquarters.

Bihar to re-auction 10 sugar mills; LoIs to RIL, HPCL on Tuesday

The Bihar government has decided to re-auction by this month-end 10 closed sugar mills, which had not received responsive bids in an earlier round.

It will issue letter of intent to successful bidders like Reliance and HPCL for the five mills auctioned in December.

"The tender will again be floated for leasing out 10 of the 15 sugar mills in the state," Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters here on Monday.

The new tender will be issued in the next 10-15 days, the State's Sugarcane Minister Nitish Mishra told PTI from Patna.

In December, Bihar government received bids from private firms for taking the closed mills on a 60-year lease but 10 mills either did not get bids or were quoted a price lower than the floor rate fixed by the financial advisor.

Kumar said SBI Caps would suggest on revising the floor price for the 10 mills, if needed.

The Bihar government has appointed SBI Caps as financial advisor for leasing out the sugar mills to the private sector.

Mishra said both the new tender and leasing out the mills to successful bidders have been approved by the State Cabinet.

The state government will on Tuesday issue the letter of intent (LoI) to the successful bidders like Reliance Industries and HPCL for the five mills, he said, adding it will receive Rs 192.11 crore from the firms for the lease.

Mukesh Ambani-led RIL has bagged one unit while oil firm Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd got two sugar mills. Delhi-based Rollcon Projects and S S Infrastructure of Darbhanga were the other two successful bidders.

Out of 15 defunct mills auctioned for long-term lease, bids had come for 12 units from 29 companies. The government rejected bids for seven mills on the ground of low floor price offered by the participants while there was none for the three units.

Railways to take over sick wagon manufacturing PSU in BIHAR and revive

The government on Thursday gave its approval for the transfer of Bharat Wagon & Engineering Company, a sick PSU, in Patna under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, to the Railways while granting a financial package of about Rs 160 crore for the revival of the company.

"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its approval for the transfer of administrative control of BWEL, a subsidiary of Bharat Bhari Udyog Nigam Ltd (BBUNL) to the Ministry of Railways after its financial restructuring," the Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram said after the CCEA meeting. Later expressing confidence to revive the company, the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav said, "Railways will revive this sick company and will invest money required in it."

The Railways has decided to invest Rs 41 crore in the company, while the government proposed to convert its pending dues worth Rs 145 crore into equity and write off the interests on the loan. With the takeover of the company, it would be able to get re gular orders for manufacturing of wagons, increase its productivity and improve its financial position, said the Railway Minister.

Incorporated in 1978, BWEL is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Bharat Bhari Udyog Nigam Ltd (BBUNL) under the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and has the capacity to manufacture 2,500 wagons annually besides LPG cylinders.

Two of its manufacturing units are located at Mokamah and Muzaffarpur and a third manufacturing unit at Bela in Bihar