Shaleen Agrawal 
 
New Delhi: Jaiprakash Associates is learnt to have acquired the entire 165 kilometres of land it needs to build an expressway between Greater Noida and Agra. The company earlier had only 7.2 kilometres of land in its possession, a company executive said.

Jaiprakash Associates is building the 165-kilometre-long Taj Expressway through the majority-owned unit Jaiprakash Infratech Ltd, created specially for implementation of the project.

Bharat Parekh, Reena Verma Bhasin and Joseph Jacobelli, Merrill Lynch analysts, said the entire 165 kilometres of land was acquired last week.

Jaiprakash Associates organised a roadshow for US investors last week to highlight the acquisition.

“This (the land acquisition) should create the room to boost engineering and construction revenues from the second half the fiscal year 2008-09,” the Merrill analysts said in a note Tuesday.

The company is also likely to get about 160 acres of land for real estate development at Noida next week, taking the total to 1075 acres along the expressway, the note said. “This will help Jaiprakash Infratech secure 39% of the Merrill Lynch estimate of the SPV value,” it said.

Jaiprakash Infratech’s director in-charge Sameer Gaur and Jaiprakash Associates’ executive chairman Manoj Gaur were unavailable for comment.

Earlier in March, Jaiprakash Associates raised Rs 250 crore by selling 1% stake in Jaiprakash Infratech to ICICI Bank, valuing the special purpose vehicle at Rs 25,000 crore. The company also secured a long term loan of Rs 900 crore from ICICI Bank.

The money will most likely be used by the company to construct the access-controlled expressway. Jaiprakash Infratech will develop, construct and operate the expressway on a tolled basis.

Jaypee Infratech also has the rights to develop 2.5 crore square metres of land along the expressway for commercial, residential, amusement, industrial and institutional purposes.

Jaiprakash Associates has also been awarded a contract by the Uttar Pradesh Development Authority to build a 1,047-km long expressway connecting Greater Noida to Balliya in the state.  The company has deposited Rs 1,491 crore as a bank guarantee for the project. Jaypee Associates will execute the 1,047-km long Ganga Expressway project through its unit Jaypee Ganga Infrastructure Corp.

Source : DNAIndia