SE Asia's tallest tower & the Reliance connection

Reliance Energy led-consortium has emerged the successful bidder for the Rs 6,400 crore business district project proposed in Hyderabad by the state-owned Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation.

The project includes a 450-metre, 100-plus storied tower, supposed to be the tallest structure in South East Asia, scheduled to be completed in three years.

The entire project is expected to be completed in five years. So far the tallest tower being built by Shapoorji Pallonji group in Mumbai is about 80-storied tall.

The entire business district project will have a built up areas of about 11 million sq ft of office and commercial space, according to a Reliance official.

This is the first major infrastructure project being taken up by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group in Andhra Pradesh.

Reliance Energy will be holding 66 per cent equity in the project while its joint venture partner, Shobha Developers, will hold 23 per cent stake. The remaining 11 per cent equity will be with APIIC towards land component (80 acres) of the project.

Reliance Energy was announced as the successful bidder after it got 75.40 points compared with 71.29 points scored by the Israeli company, Elbit Imaging, following the evaluation of both the technical and financial bids submitted by them yesterday.

Reliance has quoted a price of Rs 6.57 crore per acre while Elbit quoted 6.10 crore, which tilted the decision in favour of the former though Elbit was ahead by 3 points in the evaluation of technical bids, according to B P Acharya, vice-chairman & managing director of APIIC.

Acharya said Reliance would pay the differential amount of Rs 57 lakh per acre while adjusting the remaining bid amount towards APIIC's equity of Rs 180 crore in the tower module for the 30 acre land earmarked for the tower project.

The total equity component of the tower project is about Rs 1,636 crore while the entire project requires about Rs 2,000 crore, according to Acharya.

Though 20 companies had sent expression of interest in response to the global bids invited for the project by APIIC last year, only Reliance and Elbit remained in the fray till the end.

The Hyderabad-based Lanco Infratech has also recently announced its plans to build a 100-storied tower in its Lanco Hills project in the city.