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Maharashtra to soon name judge for Enron probe

Shiv Kumar in Bombay

Maharashtra is to soon name a judge to probe the power purchase agreement signed between US major Enron Corporation and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board.

According to state government officials, a number of retired Supreme Court judges from different parts of the country are being considered for the job.

Several parties in the ruling Democratic Front coalition have come up with different names, they said.

Though the Maharashtra government had ordered a judicial probe into the signing of the Enron PPA in July this year, it was delayed due to political wrangling.

The Nationalist Congress Party opposed its coalition partner Congress' demand that the PPA be probed afresh.

The PPA between Enron and the MSEB was originally signed in 1991 by the then undivided Congress government of present NCP chief Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra. It was subsequently ratified by the central government headed by then Congress prime minister P V Narasimha Rao.

The Congress and NCP are now jointly backing the judicial probe, saying the Enron fiasco was entirely due to the revised PPA signed by the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government that came to power in 1994.

Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and BJP's Gopinath Munde, who came to power on an anti-Enron platform, were directly in charge of negotiations with the energy company's officials.

The re-negotiated deal was ratified and counter-guarantees by the central government to Enron were provided in one of the last acts of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during his 13-day stint in 1996.

The $3-billion Enron project is now in limbo with the MSEB, the sole buyer of power, unable to pay for it. Enron's power plant, which initially generated 740 megawatts in the first phase, has had its capacity enhanced to generate a total of 1,444 MW at present.

Its original schedule was to attain full capacity of 2,184 MW this October after the completion of its second phase. The plant has now been shut down after MSEB stopped buying power from Enron.

The judicial probe will follow an earlier probe by the Madhav Godbole committee. Godbole, a retired bureaucrat, had faulted the PPA and alleged that Enron had padded up costs through the back-to-back agreements it had signed with suppliers of naphtha, the main fuel for the plant.

The committee recommended that Enron unbundle its naphtha handling facility and the plant to reduce the cost of power.

Though no brief has been prepared for the proposed judicial committee, state government officials said the bundling of naphtha supplies with generation of power would feature prominently.

Indo-Asian News Service

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