The Empowered Group of Ministers looking into the Dabhol power project fiasco is likely to meet on Friday to discuss ways to restart the plant that has been lying idle for over three years.
The group of ministers hopes to come up with a solution that would be "acceptable" to all concerned parties, including promoters GE and Bechtel, and IDBI-led consortium of lenders, official sources said on Thursday.
The panel is slated to meet on Friday to consider various issues, including ways to buy out the foreign debt.
Tomorrow's meeting assumes importance in the wake of claims worth of $291 million filed by offshore lenders on December 10.
The offshore lenders have alleged that the Indian government was delaying the process of resolving the issue.
The claims arise out of problems affecting the project and reflect the lack of progress by the government over the last three years to agree a solution that recognises both the political nature of these problems and the rights of the offshore lenders, the foreign lenders have alleged.
The government had agreed to provide counter guarantee to the domestic lenders for buying out the foreign debts. It has already asked companies like IDBI, NTPC and Gail to form a special purpose vehicle for this.
Although the group of ministers has had four meetings, sources said a deadline for resolving the Dabhol debacle cannot be fixed considering the complexity of the issue.
The mega power plant, which entails an investment of over $3 billion, became sick after erstwhile energy giant Enron became bankrupt.
