Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Maharashtra to set up expert panel on Enron

In order to resolve the imbroglio over payment crisis between the Maharashtra State Electricity Board and US energy major Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company, Maharashtra will set up an expert committee for negotiations even as the multinational is contemplating winding up of its operations in the country.

"We are now going for negotiations and will form an experts committee in which Maharashtra expects the Centre to participate," chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told reporters after attending a condolence meeting to pay tributes to late Nasscom president Dewang Mehta in Bombay on Sunday.

"All the four parties -- namely the state, Union government, Enron and MSEB -- should come together for negotiations; otherwise it cannot be a complete exercise," he added.

Deshmukh and the MSEB team are scheduled to meet Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and power minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday in New Delhi to discuss the stalemate and find an acceptable solution for the same. "I am meeting Sinha and Prabhu to request them to take an initiative and send representatives for the negotiations committee," he said.

Deshmukh's meeting with the Centre comes at a crucial stage as DPC's lenders would be meeting in London, on the same day, to decide upon the future finances of the controversy marred 2,184-mw project in Dabhol.

Moreover, the DPC board is also scheduled to meet on April 25 in London to decide the fate of its $900-million project in Dabhol, including winding up of its operations.

The meeting would discuss the topmost item on the agenda, which was to empower DPC managing director Neil McGregor to wind up operations in the country. DPC has already slapped one conciliation notice on the Centre and three arbitration notices on the state government over non-payment of dues amounting to Rs 2.13-billion plus interest towards the bills due for the months of December 2000 and January 2001.

Asked whether the Centre had send any feelers over a possible clubbing together of the arbitration and conciliation processes, Deshmukh replied in the negative. Deshmukh said MSEB chairman Vinay Bansal, along with two senior officials, would attend DPC's board meeting in London.

Bansal had said on Sunday that MSEB would present its case concerning the Rs 4.01-billion penalty that the loss-making board slapped on DPC on February 28, for not generating required power within the stipulated time as per the PPA.

Currently, Enron India holds 65 per cent in the $900-million DPC project, which includes MSEB's 15 per cent, while General Electric and Bechtel hold 10 per cent each.

YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
DPC board meet in London on Apr 25 to decide project fate
'I think there will not be many takers for Enron's stake in DPC'

Back to top

(c) Copyright 2000 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.

Tell us what you think of this report