Harish Palaniappan's

The government of UttarPradesh has floated tenders for international competitive bidding... for building an 8-lane road connecting the East-West of the state. The projects worth as per the tender is a whopping 25,000 and odd crores of Indian rupees.. or 6.7bn US$.

No, No, this is not for all road projects in the entire country.. but just approximately 950 kilometer stretch of road with 8-lanes. If you calculate 950x8 and put that in the denominator of 25000 crores...you get a budget of 328 crore rupees per km of one lane road.. i.e., 8.4 million US$ per km of 1-lane road...probably the costliest road project in the whole world.. I believe the road is going to be on the ground. Anyways, so, this is indeed a big BIG loot.

And even after all that money, all Indians know how much of all these government projects get completed.. and how well.. or actually whether they will really have 8-lanes when completed after 10-15 years. How can some 25,000 crore of money go un-laundered .. that too given that it is in India.. that too uttar pradesh.. and finally with Ms.Mayawati, the current uttar pradesh chief minister being the beneficiary. She must really have big plans.

News link: Contract for Indian highway goes to bid

The news is on the radar of almost all foreign business news websites.. everybody is into India to loot your money, and to take it back with them out of India itself, god save all our money :o).