JSW to examine ties with Maytas

Indian Express
Priyadarshi Siddhanta Posted online: Jan 27, 2009 at 0119 hrs

New Delhi : Barely days after the Orissa government decided to put activities of beleaguered IT giant Satyam’s infrastructure arm Maytas Infra under the scanner, Sajjan Jindal-promoted JSW has now decided “to review” its ties with the company in view of various reports about the company in the media.

Maytas had bagged orders worth about Rs 100 crore to build two townships for employees of JSW Steel in Vijaynagar (Karnataka) and for JSW Energy worth Rs 53.60 crore and at Ratnagiri (Maharashtra) worth Rs 42.90 crore. “In view of the reports coming in about Maytas, we intend to review our ties with it next week,” JSW Group chief financial officer and JSW Steel director (finance) Seshagiri Rao told The Indian Express. Reports say Maytas had completed about 35 per cent work in Vijayanagar, where JSW Steel is expanding its capacity to 7 MTPA. In Ratnagiri the group has a 1,200 MW power project. The project in Vijayanagar was awarded to Maytas in September 2007 after competitive bidding.

The Naveen Pattnaik government in Orissa too has asked KVK Nilachal Power company to make it clear by next week whether it wants to continue to partner with Maytas Infra or would go alone on developing the 1,200 MW power project in Cuttack district of the coastal state. The state has also asked the firm to spell out in detail on how it intends to raise the money for the same if it preferred to go alone.

“We had extensive interactions with representatives of KVK Nilachal Company here (Bhubaneswar) yesterday and asked them whether they wanted to continue with Maytas in developing the power project or would they prefer to go alone. In either case they will have to spell out the ways through which they intend to raise resources for executing the project,” Orissa energy secretary P K Jena had said. According to reports emanating from Orissa, KVK Nilachal is not averse to going alone on the project in case Maytas was out of it. “They (KVK Nilachal) said they will have express deliberations with Maytas officials and let us know by next week,” he pointed out. Maytas is hogging the limelight as never before and recently its CEO P K Madhav quit the company recently in view of his attention and energy being used to address the legal matters pertaining to the Nagarjuna Finance case.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=415546