At present, as India has been forecasted to be the fastest-growing construction superpower owing to the increased urbanization and population growth, rising infrastructure costs, and an increase in housing structures, the demands placed on the EPC sector also seem to be growing significantly to boost the nation’s growth & building development. In fact, EPC, a contract comprising Engineering, Procurement, and Construction is a key contributor for the major parties who tender projects to undertake the construction works. Well, as the construction market in India is expected to reach Rs.117.02 trillion by 2027 expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.26 percent during the 2022-2027 forecast period, the EPC sector will markedly grow relative to the constructions around.
While EPC is solely a mode of construction contract bagging 80 percent of the government tenders, be it any EPC subsidiary like BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) contract, a HAM (Hybrid Annuity Model) contract, or a PPP (Public–Private Partnership) contract, all concessionaires require EPC contractor to execute their contracts. In the past, there were numerous contracts like Item Rate contracts, Model Standard Bidding Document (SBD) contracts, and more, but EPC stands its point being at par with all the others since 2011, helping avoid all the variations that used to occur earlier. Distributing the Engineering work including the designing and more to the contractor side and ensuring the construction visibility as EPC seems a more efficient mode of construction, there are various other benefits to it. Most importantly, the EPC mode of contract helps the leaders in construction to implement a lot of new ideas at the construction site. Thus, EPC remains at the core of construction, and its demand never fades away.
The Company & its Unique Construction Solutions
Founded in 1973, Bharat Vanijya Eastern (BVEPL) has established itself as one of India's largest privately held infrastructure development companies. With a strong focus on the construction industry, BVEPL has been instrumental in executing notable EPC projects, contributing to the sector's substantial growth. Under the exceptional leadership of Pradip Kumar Bhadra, who serves as the Managing Director of BVEPL, the company has leveraged its industry expertise to spearhead these initiatives. “The BVEPL is now one of the leading EPC contractor finesse in India and we are committedly improving the geography of construction. As of now, we are working across West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Karnataka. We are trying to expand from the Northeast region to the East, and now we are spreading along Karnataka including the other parts of the Southern region. We are trying to grow in a big way, as far as the EPC contract is concerned”, avers BVEPL.
The effectively positioned company BVEPL’s flagship is into Road Construction and Highways, which implies not only the Construction, of Roads & Highways, but, the expansive Expressways construction, through the building of Railway over Bridges, Major Bridges, Minor Bridges, Flyovers, Grade Separators, Pedestrian Underpass (PUP), Minor structures, Toll-plaza, Rest Areas, and Amenities.
While these are all part & parcel of an Expressway, Highway, or Road construction like railway, tunnel, irrigation, construction demanded by the Airport Authority of India, and others, BVEPL’s services limit to only Highway & Road Constructions, and is specialized into the same as well.
With regards to construction, there always exist diverse issues which come into the picture either from the banker’s end or the client/customer/the general public’s side. The land acquisition marks number one, followed by the forest approvals for falling trees, along with environmental clearances. These all together are the three major points with which people generally face challenges, and which lead to an excessive delay in the execution of a contract. “What happens is that most of the big-size contracts are taken either by the Central or the State government depending upon different funding by the World Bank, ADB, or any other major bankers who are funding this project.
Though these three bodies are helping in the clearance of land acquisition, the forest environment is generally taken care of by the District Administration. It simply implies that there’s a chain of approvals that leads to the successful execution of a contract. For example, even if the Central government is funding a project, it has to approach the State government and the State government approaches the District Administration to assist with this. Generally, in the EPC mode of contract, as the land is given to a contractor incumbrance free for a period of five years plus the construction period, the contractor strives to ensure that there is no further encroachment after the contract is signed.
In the second part of the EPC contract, the contractor is given the liberty or authorization to directly contact the forest department, electrical department, PHE department, or utility department, along with the District Magistrate for expediting the process of land acquisition for removal of utilities, and all of the other facilities which are required to be done prior to commencement of construction. So, apart from the government, the contractor is also playing a very vital role during the development period, to remove these things, which earlier was done by the State or the Central government with the help of the District Administration. Now, apart from the District Administration, the EPC contractor is also playing a very important role in this pursuit.
BVEPL, a strategically positioned company, specializes in the construction of roads, highways, & expansive expressways. Their flagship service revolves around creating & developing efficient road infrastructure
“Our uniqueness is that, we are believers not in creating CEOs or Vice Presidents, we believe in creating entrepreneurs. Hence, what we have done to decentralize the process of construction is that we have created lots of subsidiaries within the main company, where numerous owners or stakeholders are created like an entrepreneur who is taking care of each segment. For example, if there is a Railway over Bridge, we have got a segment or person in the company as an entrepreneur, who's taking care of only Railway over Bridge construction and who specializes in doing that. This unique methodology, helps us get the best of the people and deliver the required to clients”, states Pradip.
BVEPL are government contractors. As there's a national and international bidding process, it gets the contracts through the tendering process (open tender) doing bids on the different portals knowing about the E-notices. While bidding for the tenders is an extensive process, BVEPL thoroughly checks the viability, accessibility, costing, computation of quantities, and other things, because in the EPC mode, the engineering, design, drawing, construction, and procurement & construction, are done by the contractor party. “There are different modes of contract like HAM or BOT (which are a part of PPP), where we are not in a big way, but there are a lot of concessionaires like big giants in our field, who are more into financial modeling like Adani, and so many other big companies out there who are more interested in BOT or HAM projects. Hence, we are trying to tie up with the financial concessionaires who are into a long-term BOT or HAM, so that we can take the EPC contracts from there (right before the tendering process) because they also need an EPC contractor to do the work”, adds Pradip.
Future Roadmap
Through proficient employees deployed in the team and serving the clientele directly such as the NHAI (National Highway Authority of India), MORTH (Ministry of Road Transport & Highways), and PWD (Public Works Department), and private contractors like Ashoka Buildcon, and DRA, the company has come a long way as of today. Currently in the 50th year of its existence, as they touched more than 1000 crores of revenue in 2023, rising from scratch, BVEPL further plans to relish 2000 crores turnover in the approaching next two years. Furthermore, there are several projects in the pipeline that will be adding more to its brand value in the future.
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