Reliance, the Tatas, Enron, Grasim Industries of the Aditya Birla group and ModiCorp of the B K Modi group are among the 11 contenders shortlisted by the Orissa government as potential investors in the power distribution company.
Among the 11 companies , the US based utility AES, which has jointly bid along with Jyothi Structures has also been shortlisted by the government for the distribution venture despite retaining interests in Orissa Power Generating Corporation.
After the government recently divested majority stake in the corporation towards AES, sources said that AES was not expected to be shortlisted for the distribution venture, as a generating company cannot retain any interest in distribution in a given zone.
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These companies will now put in their price bids by November 1998, after which the government will shortlist one company for each of its four zones. Even though the shortlisted companies can bid for all the zones in the state_-sources said that the state would not allot more than one zone to any of the companies.
The 11 companies include the consortia of Reliance-Eskom (of South Africa); Enron Distribution Venture_-which is a joint venture between Enron and Delhi based Amco Transformers; BSES of India; National Grid of UK along with Energy Australia and Modicorp of India; Grasim Industries along with Singapore
Power; Indure Limited _a joint venture between United Utility of UK and Amplife of Autralia; EdF of France along with ILFS of India; Cal Energy__a joint venture between Dishergarh Power Supply Company, US-based Northern Electric; Hydro Quebec of Canada along of HEG Limited and the consortia of Tata Electric Company, Viridian group and North Ireland Electric.
Eskom is one of the five largest utlitities in the world handling power generation ,transmission and distribution in SouthAfrica. This is its first international venture outside South Africa. EdF of France which handles all of generation, transmission and distribution in France is already present in India as one of the promoters of the Bhadrawati power project in Maharashtra.
Orissa, which is the first state to have initiated privatisation of its power sector, invited bids for its distribution venture early this year. Twelve companies had bid for the distribution venture in March, of which only Cescon of Calcutta has been left out of the race.
The entire state has been divided into four zones with the state being the minority shareholder in the venture. Orissa had shelved its initial plan of adopting the management contract model for power distribution as there were objections from power companies over government continuing to retain control over the distribution company.
The state then adopted the joint-venture model similar to the Rajasthan model whereby the state would be divided into different zones after which 51 per cent stake in each zone would be offered to private sector.