The road transport and highways ministry has lined up projects worth Rs 50,000 c

rore to be awarded under public-private partnership mode in 2016-17. This will b

e the largest chunk of highways projects to be awarded by the ministry under the
PPP mode in a single financial year.
The government is targeting increasing the length of highways across the country
to 1.5 lakh km from the existing 1 lakh km in the next four years. It plans to
undertake construction of 7,000-8000 km on its own during the next fiscal. To bo
ost private sector interest in the sector, the ministry has taken a slew of meas
ures including introducing an exit policy aimed at improving the availability of
equity funds by allowing developers to monetise existing projects. The exit pol
icy framework permit
This year the government expects to garner more than Rs 20,000 crore by way of p
rivate investments in the roads sector. It has already awarded projects worth Rs
12,000 crore. "Projects will be awarded mostly under the hybrid annuity model.
Some of them will also be given out on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model. W
e are looking at awarding close to 5,000 km to private players," a senior govern
ment official said.
India's top IT firms are bracing themselves for one of their worst quarterly res
ults in recent memory. Their performance in the typically weak quarter through D
ecember is further hurt by the floods in Chennai and a general slowdown in globa
l technology spending, several company executives and analysts said.
The setback will have further ramifications for India's $146-billion IT industry
. Homegrown giants such as TCSBSE 0.70 % and Infosys may fall short of Nasscom's
12-14% exports growth outlook for FY16.
There are worries that the current fiscal year may end as the worst in terms of
revenue growth for Indian IT. Executives at the industry lobby group are even co
ntemplating revising their projections for this year, according to people famili
ar with the discussions.
"Our modelling has factored in a certain figure for the likes of TCS (Tata Consu
ltancy Services) - now we have to wait and see how the Q3 numbers turn out befor
e we change our projections," said a Nasscom executive, who declined to be named
.
At least half-a-dozen analysts and brokerages ET spoke to are of the opinion tha
t India's top five software exporters may post a 1-2% fall in revenue - or at th
e most record a flat performance - on a sequential basis in the fiscal third qua
rter ending on December 31.