Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (SP)
Udupi, Jul 4: If reports in a section of the media are to be believed, JSW Energy owned by Mumbai-based Sajjan Jindal Group, having a number of industries under its belt with a total capital outlay of 11 billion US dollars, has evinced interest in acquiring the power plant owned by Udupi Power Corporation Ltd (UPCL) located at Yellur near Padubidri in the district. UPCL is presently owned by Lanco Infratech Ltd.
The acquisition price being negotiated now is around Rs 5,700 crore, it is gathered, which would be the first acquisition of such magnitude in the thermal power industry wherein a domestic firm is purchasing another fully commissioned power project.
UPCL, which has been facing problems one after the other since the early stages of its inception from the locals who accuse the company of being callous to their concerns relating to damages to the eco system, environment and farming, at present generates 1,200 mw of power through its two units, by using imported coal to fire its boilers. It is said that Jindal Group is agreeable to take over UPCL liabilities amounting to about Rs 4,500 crore.
Lanco Group, said to be facing financial crunch of late, had been on the lookout for buyers for UPCL, it is learnt. Lanco says that it had set up UPCL with an investment of over Rs 6,000 crore. UPCL is fighting with electric supply companies in Karnataka for getting more than double the agreed rate for the power supplied by it, pointing out provisions in power purchase agreements between the two. Citing non-payment of over Rs 2,000 crore allegedly due to it, UPCL had stopped generation of power for nearly two weeks recently.
Honorary president of Nandikoor Janajagruti Samiti, Balakrishna Shetty, a non-resident Indian presently working in Dubai, is learnt to have shot off an email to Sajjan Jindal Group, after coming to know that a deal is brewing to sell of UPCL, asking the group to think twice before acquiring the concern. He has pointed out that the UPCL project does not have clearance from the ministry of environment of the central government, and that the company's fly ash pond at Santhoor village also does not possess environmental clearance. He is learnt to have pointed out that the dispute over fixing of price for the power supplied to the state government has not yet been sorted out.