Indian Government open to suggestions from IL&FS new management: Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said Friday the government is open to suggestions from the new management of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) to revive its infrastructure schemes.

"It is not our work to stall road projects. Our work is to complete projects in time within the ambit of rules and regulations. If any company or any contractor, facing obstacles comes we will try to find out a solution," the road transport and highways minister said on the sidelines of India-Russia Business summit here.

He said IL&FS has a new management which after analysing the situation will come up with suggestions and based on that the government is ready to help them.

We are facilitators and we want to complete our work in a transparent manner, Gadkari said.

He said the government is committed to complete the projects in a transparent, time-bound and corruption-free manner as "completing the projects is its mandate".

"Our thinking is positive and we have made policy changes to help those facing difficulties," the minister said.

The government has taken control of the crippled IL&FS group whose 358 subsidiaries owe more than Rs 91,000 crore to banks and other lenders, and has appointed a new six-member board under banker Uday Kotak, which met for the first time yesterday and underlined the difficulties that lie ahead as the size and the liabilities of the infra lending and engineering major has more than doubled.

The infrastructure projects taken by IL&FS include Zojila tunnel and Chennai Nashri tunnel in Jammu & Kashmir.

Gadkari said the government is open to help those facing difficulties in projects, and added that the Narendra Modi government had rescued banks from Rs 3 lakh crore NPAs by rolling out stuck infrastructure projects.

"We are trying to help those facing difficulties that is why when our government came we had rolled out most of the 403 stalled projects worth Rs 3.85 lakh crore. In the course of four years, we saved Indian banks from NPAs of over Rs three lakh crore. We streamlined it in a transparent manner. We are ready to help all facing difficulties within the rule," he said.

(With inputs from agencies.)