Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd (HMRL) today invited competitive bids from chartered accountancy firms for appointment as “Statutory Auditors” for the Hyderabad metro rail project.
HMRL is overseeing implementation of the Rs 14,132-crore metro rail project taken up under the public private partnership (PPP) mode, with L&T chosen as the concessionaire.
The Managing Director of HMRL, Mr N.V.S. Reddy, in a statement said they will prepare a panel of five chartered accountancy firms from among the applicants scoring the highest points on the basis of their experience in the past five years.
This will be forwarded to L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Ltd, which will then appoint one of the firms as Statutory Auditors for certifying the books of accounts and all other financial statements, which will have to be maintained by the Concessionaire L&TMRHL as per the Concession Agreement. L&TMRHL will bear the fee payable to the Statutory Auditors.
To have a strict vigil over the cash flows of the project, it is made mandatory to have a special Escrow Account. All the funds received by the Concessionaire including bank loans, passenger fares, real estate rentals, VGF grant amounts will be deposited in this Escrow Account.