A meeting between the Indian and foreign lenders to the Dabhol Power Company will be held in the US next week to pursue the buying out of foreign debt to the project.
The foreign lenders, during a meeting in Singapore in January, had agreed in-principle to sell their $600 million DPC debt at a 40 per cent discount.
An official from one of the lenders to the project said a meeting of Indian and foreign lenders to the DPC is on the cards early next week in Washington for further discussions.
Jitender Balakrishnan, executive director, and Alok Dasgupta, deputy general manager-project appraisal, at IDBI and State Bank of India managing director T S Bhattacharya are among the officials from the Indian lenders who would attend the meeting.
Indian lenders including Industrial Development Bank of India, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, and Canara Bank, have extended $1.3 billion in loans to the 2,184 mw gas-fired power project. Over 20 foreign lenders, including Bank of America, Citicorp and ABN Amro, have lent $600 million.
The Indian lenders plan to set up a special purpose non-banking finance company, Gas and Power Investment Company for buying the foreign lenders' loans. The GPIC is expected to tap the debt market to raise the first tranche of Rs 1,000-1,200 crore (Rs 10-12 billion) for buying the foreign debt of DPC.
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