Maharashtra Airport Development Co has allotted 50 acres of land for the MRO facility and Boeing plans to start construction of the unit in the second quarter of 2010

After being delayed for two years, Boeing will start construction of a $100-million aircraft repair and overhaul facility at Nagpur by the second quarter of this calendar year in collaboration with Air India, its top official said on Monday.

"We deliberately delayed the maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO) project as we wanted to time it to match with the delivery of the Boeing 787 Dreamliners to Air India. It (the facility) will come up by late 2013 or early 2014," Boeing India chief Dinesh Keskar told reporters.

About 50 acres of land has already been allocated for the project by the Maharashtra Airport Development Co and construction will start in the second quarter of this year.

Mr Keskar said that the MRO facility was intended to serve 23 Boeing 777s, 27 Dreamliner 787s and other aircraft types like the 737s ordered by Air India.

Noting that B-787s would not require major checks immediately after their deliveries to Air India start next year, Mr Keskar said that when these aircraft would need to go in for high-level 'C' checks, "the facility would be fully in place".

The Boeing India chief projected that India would require $100 billion worth of planes in the next 20 years, with single-aisle aircraft forming the bulk of the demand worth $60 billion. As the 10th largest military spender in the world, India would require $31 billion worth of defence deliveries in the next 10 years, he said.
 

CRISIL has said that it expects India to regain and sustain its pre-crisis GDP growth rate of about 9% starting in 2011, provided it hastens policy reforms in areas such as taxation, education, and foreign investment regulations

Ratings agency CRISIL Ltd has said that having emerged from the global economic crisis relatively unscathed than most other nations, India is on course to return to a pre-crisis growth rate of about 9% from 2011, if key reforms continue.

"Though not insulated from the global crisis, India proved to be less vulnerable than many first anticipated. In contrast with advanced economies, its financial sector also stayed fairly healthy. This made the country's stimulus program more effective than elsewhere and accelerated its recovery," said Dharmakirti Joshi, principal economist of CRISIL Ltd, a unit of Standard & Poor's (S&P).

"As a result, we expect India to regain and sustain its pre-crisis GDP growth rate of about 9% starting in 2011, provided it hastens policy reforms in areas such as taxation, education, and foreign investment regulations,” said Mr Joshi in a guest opinion article titled "Why India Will Continue To Gain Stature In The Global Economy" and published by S&P.

The article says that India's large, young, and growing population, the rising income of the middle class, and the country's high savings rate continue to support strong domestic demand, tempering the impact of weak export markets and other external stimuli.

CRISIL said that it believes that the country therefore has a greater opportunity than advanced economies to address its constraints and create a prosperous 'new normal' for its economy.

"Clearly, the fallout from the global crisis for advanced economies is lower growth and reduced financial leverage, each reinforcing the other. But for India, the economic environment and growth possibilities haven't changed fundamentally. The challenge before India is not merely achieving a 9% growth rate but also sustaining it," added Mr Joshi.

According to the article, realising India's potential will mean accelerating reforms to improve the investment climate, productivity, and domestic demand to offset the impact of weak performances among advanced economies.

Areas that need immediate policy action include addressing the country's high debt and deficits, improvement in infrastructure, opening the door to more foreign investment, streamlining the tax system via early implementation of a goods and services tax that would replace the existing system of indirect taxation, amending labour laws, and reforming the financial sector, the article said.
 

As many as 17 projects, both big and small, involving production of 101MT, were delayed due to the long wait in getting clearances from the environment and forest ministry

State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) has revised its production target to 486 million tonnes (MT) from 520MT by 2012, as the delay in getting environment and forest clearances for some of its projects have affected production, company chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya told PTI.

"In the mid-term appraisal, the company's production target has been revised to 486MT from 520MT by 2012," he said.

As many as 17 projects, both big and small, involving production of 101MT, were delayed due to the long wait in getting clearances from the environment and forest ministry, Mr Bhattacharyya told reporters in Kolkata after a press conference to announce the Asian Mining Congress, which will be held here from 22nd January.

Mr Bhattacharyya said if CIL received environment and forest clearance for those projects now, the company would still be able to produce 47MT of coal in the remaining two years.

He said normally, it should take 300 days for a project to get clearance, but it has taken about five years to get these clearances.

There should be an integrated approach to give clearances and a proper policy should be formulated for this purpose, he added.