Engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro has informed that it has bagged various orders worth Rs 605 crore in the last quarter of financial year 2009.

Providing details regarding the latest orders bagged, the company said, that it has received Rs 165 crore order from the Andhra Pradesh Government for supplying potable water, which has to be completed in 15 months.

Further, the company has received Rs 133 crore order from the Delhi Jal Board for designing and laying pipelines. The project is scheduled to be completed in 21 months.

Mumbai-based Gammon India Ltd has notified that it has secured a project c

Mumbai-based Valecha Engineering Ltd has informed that it has picked new projects worth Rs 136 crores which includes road resurfacing of runway at Srinagar worth Rs 71 crores and construction of under pass connecting to Dwarka at Delhi worth Rs 65 crores.

Further the company stated in a separate announcement that its Middle-East operations are also progressing well and recently the company has formed a wholly owned subsidiary in the name of Valecha International FZE at Sharjah in UAE.

Valecha Engineering Limited operates as a construction and infrastructure company primarily in India.

Hyderabad based IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects has informed the market that it has bagged project orders worth Rs.359.52 crore from different agencies for construction related works.

In a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the company has received the first order of Rs 164.64 crore from Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. Under the project, the company will construct Vivekananda Road flyover on turnkey contract basis in Kolkata in a period of 18 months.

The Macquarie-SBI Infrastructure Fund (MSIF) is the newly-announced joint venture of India's biggest lender State Bank of India (SBI) and the largest Australian investment bank Macquarie Group Ltd., which has raised $1 billion for investment in ports and power plants in India.

The SBI-Macquarie joint venture MSIF also boasts of the participation of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, as a minority shareholder and keystone investor.

Infrastructure companies could well see an upside to their margins after the reduction in prices of steel and cement. Last week, steel manufacturers cut the price of steel by Rs 400-600 a tonne to about Rs 28,000 and cement makers have reduced the cost of bulk cement by Rs 4-5 per 50-kg bag to Rs 225-245. The moves follow the reduction in the central excise duty from 10% to 8% on February 24.