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News Forward
AMR's Indonesian coal venture
AMR Construction has entered into a joint venture in Indonesia
for its first coalmining venture. The JV called PT AMR Mineral
Resources has acquired a 1,700-hectare coalfield in that country
and is now looking to acquire more mines. The company will
invest $15 million to develop the recently acquired mine.
The firm is planning to bring 70 per cent of the coal produced
in the country to India and the remainder will be exported
to China, according to AM Reddy,CMD, AMR Construction. It
is reported AMR holds 70 percent stake in the venture while
Bob Sundaram, a Malaysian investor, holds the rest.
Land hunt
Real estate firms like Unitech are on a property-acquiring
spree With the real estate boom acquisition of large tracts
of land has become the latest mantra with developers. Unitech
reportedly has the largest land bank of all listed real estate
developers in the country with a total of 10,332 acres comprising
400 million sq ft constructible area and 8 million sq yd of
plot area. Of the other major realty players, Ansal API has
about 6,000 acres, Sobha Developers, 6,059 acres and Mahindra
Gesco, 1637 acres.
Recently DLF's prospectus filed with SEBI pegged the company's
land reserves at 10,255 acres with a developable area of approximately
574 million square feet, of which 46 million square feet is
under construction. A major reason for the acquisition spree
is to ensure the comfort level of the foreign investor who
prefers to align with a real estate player having a large
land reserve. This fact has been driven home from the recent
tie-up between the Marriott group and Unitech in a hospitality
venture. The property boom has brought with it huge expansion
and scale up plans by major real estate firms. With these
plans comes the need for funds forcing companies to look at
investment sources, in particular FDI. In any case a large
land bank also adds to a firm's valuations. Secondly a large
land bank offers larger players security from small real estate
developers who are increasingly entering the fray. In the
last two years up to 4,500 small and medium developers have
mushroomed.
AAI selects ESRI's GIS tech
Airports Authority of India (AAI) has awarded the No Objection
Certificate Application System (NOCAS) project to NIIT Limited,
parent company of NIIT-GIS Ltd. (ESRI India). A No Objection
Certificate for height clearance issued by AAI is required
for construction projects, such as high-rise buildings or
communications masts, that fall within 20 km of an airport.
The NOCAS project automates the prioritisation and processing
of NOC applications based on criteria established by AAI,
which will greatly streamline the approval process. The enterprisewide
geographic information system application will be Internet
based with a link available at the AAI website. Rajesh C Mathur,
president, ESRI India said: "The decision to select ESRI
technology for the agency's enterprise GIS will help make
its application and related data available to many internal
and external users in a very secure and accurate environment
with a low cost of ownership."
Reliance MOU with MP
Reliance Energy is to enter into an agreement with Madhya
Pradesh for setting up a coal-bed methane power plant and
to set up agro retail outlets. While the coal bed methane
facility will come up in Shahadol, agro retail outlets will
come up in 75 cities across the state for sale of fresh vegetables
and fruit. It is reported months leading from April will see
the opening of 13 outlets by Reliance in Bhopal and Indore
alone. The Memorandum of Understanding will be signed during
a two-day investors' meet at Khajuraho from Jan 16, according
to state Commerce and Industries Minister Babulal Gaur.
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