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Singapore meet spills over; no proposals given, says DPC

The two-day crucial meeting of IDBI-led financial institutions with Enron's Dabhol Power Company at Singapore has spilled over to Saturday with the energy major stating that it has 'not received any proposals

from any of the participants'.

A senior FI official in Singapore confirmed the development, saying, "We have not yet reached any concrete decision on the issue and are having marathon meetings with all the three parties (Tata Power and BSES being the other two firms). Hopefully, something substantial will happen by tomorrow."

The DPC spokesperson said the energy major had agreed to attend the meeting 'upon personal requests from senior representatives of the Government of India and Indian banks'.

"DPC received assurances from the Centre and the FIs that they intend to present new proposals at this meeting with respect to a negotiated settlement of this dispute, including purchase of foreign sponsor equity by the GOI or FIs," he said.

Tata Power is represented by its managing director Adi Engineer and deputy managing director F A Vandrewalla. BSES Ltd chairman and managing director R V Shahi is accompanied by Reliance Power vice-president J P Chalsiani, who has also participated in these negotiations.

Earlier IDBI, which is major creditor to DPC, had said that the two-day meeting between the Indian lenders and Dabhol officials was progressing well. Saxena was also quoted as saying that he was positive about the outcome of the talks.

The Houston-based Enron Corp owns 65 per cent stake in the Dabhol Power Company.

Indian financial institutions have given almost Rs 61 billion to the power project, while Enron and its partners, General Electric and Bechtel Corp, have invested $1 billion.

"The domestic lenders have tried to facilitate a meeting between prospective buyers and the seller as we have a common interest in saving this power project from going bust," Saxena was quoted as saying.

HC order restrains DPC

Meanwhile, the Bombay high court on Friday passed an ad-interim order restraining DPC from issuing the final termination notices up to December 3 or the next day of hearing of the case.

Justice D K Deshmukh gave this direction in response to a petition filed by the Indian financial institutions -- IDBI, ICICI, IFCI and the State Bank of India -- on November 6, seeking court intervention against DPC's action that would have helped the foreign investors to exercise their previously agreed contractual rights.

The court order would provide some breathing period for the institutions to mend their future strategy to counter the final termination notice of DPC.

DPC would have taken two-week time to serve the notice after November 19, the last day of the six months time period after serving preliminary termination notice on may 18.

"We can not issue the final notice since the court has expressed its willingness to have another round of hearing on December 3," sources in DPC said.

The FIs are also insisting on maintenance of status quo of the DPC project as these institutions want immediate resumption of work for completion of phase-II project and asked the Maharashtra State Electriciy Board to resume buying power from DPC.

PTI and UNI

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