The Andhra Pradesh government is going to write to Maytas Infra Limited, a listed company promoted by the family of scam-hit Satyam Computer Services founder B Ramalinga Raju, to come out with a “definite time line” within a fortnight for achieving financial closure for the proposed Rs 1,590-crore Machilipatnam port project, according to a senior government official.
The government had awarded the port project to the Maytas-led consortium comprising Nagarjuna Construction Company, SREI Infrastructure Finance and Sarat Chatterjee & Company on April 21, 2008. As per the concession agreement signed by the government with Vajra Seaport Private Limited, a special purpose vehicle floated by the consortium to execute the project, financial closure had to be achieved by April 20, 2009.
However, Maytas Infra, which ran into rough weather following Satyam’s abortive bid to acquire it in December last year and the confession of Ramalinga Raju to a massive accounting fraud in January, failed to achieve financial closure as per schedule.
The state government, which cancelled the concessionaire agreement of the Rs 12,132-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail project awarded to Maytas as it failed to achieve financial closure, has now decided to convene a meeting of Maytas representatives to discuss the road map for the port project.
Earlier, the government-appointed chairman of Maytas Infra, K Ramalingam, said there were also some contractual obligations on part of the Andhra Pradesh government and the company was keen to execute the project. It would achieve the financial closure in about 45 days, he said.
Informed sources, however, said that in its reply to a letter written by the government, Maytas had promised to come out with a definite time line regarding execution of the project but had not done so till now.
With regard to the contractual obligations cited by Ramalingam, an official source told Business Standard that the government has to give to the company about 2,000 acres towards construction of the port. “We now have the land and are ready to hand it over to Maytas provided it comes out with a definite time line,” he said.
The state government has agreed to give a total of 6,262.19 acres to Maytas for setting up the build, operate, own and transfer (BOOT) project. Of this, about 2,000 acres is meant for port and the rest for setting up a power project and other facilities.
According to the state government, Maytas had completed all oceanographic, bathymetric and geotechnical studies pertaining to the project. Maytas has also submitted the detailed project report on January 16, 2009. The port will have 12 berths with a cargo handling capacity of 35 million tonnes per annum. The concession period is for 30 years.
