Our patience is running out -- Enron India chief

Our patience is running out -- Enron India chief
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

DABHOL, Dist RATNAGIRI: Continous delay in payment of bills by the loss-making Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and its recent Rs 400 crore penalty notice to Dabhol Power Company have `compelled the Enron officials to talk tough'.

``Our patience is being tested and we are reaching a point where we may not give any concessions to the state government,'' K Wade Cline, president of Enron India said while talking to a group of journalists who visited the DPC's power plant at Dabhol over the weekend.

The MSEB has failed to pay the bills for January and February which amount to Rs 229 crore. It has only paid Rs 50 crore towards the January bill. ``The MSEB must honour the contractual obligations,''he said referring to the provisions in the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between the board and the DPC. ``We are serious on exercising the security measures,'' Cline said indicating that the DPC may invoke the letter of credit or the Centre's counter gurantee again if the board fails to pay the dues.

The Enron officials see MSEB's penatly notice as its attempt to pressure the DPC for allowing delay in bill payment. They said they were seriously thinking of approaching London-based International Arbitrator in response to penalty notice issued by the MSEB. The company would like to solve the dispute amicably but may seek intervention of the arbitrator if its attempt fails, Cline said.

`It is a purely commercial dispute. Instead of sending the notice, the MSEB should have approached the disputes committee formed under the PPA,'' expressed Neil McGregor, President and CEO of DPC.

``The MSEB is aware of the functioning of the DPC plant. The baseload plant takes five to six hours to reach from zero to peak power generation capacity,''he pointed out.

Despite knowing this, MSEB penalised the company under the mistake clause of the PPA which actually means the latter had made an intentional mistake. The agreement has specific provisions which allows MSEB to invoke the clause if power is not supplied by DPC within three hours of demand. Referring to the period specified by the MSEB in its notice, DPC officials said that the board had not drawn any unit of power in the precedding hours and suddenly placed a demand for 180 MW.

The DPC preferred to sort out the matter through discussion with the MSEB and State Government when the board failed to pay its dues in time, McGregor pointed out.

Cline also said that the Enron was never given a chance to sit with the representatives of MSEB, State Government and Central Government across the table and discuss the issue. ``They did not make any attempt for holding such a meeting,''Cline alleged.

He evaded the queries about Sena Chief Bal Thackeray's recent statement that the US government had forced him to revive the Enron project.``I am not aware of any such thing,''he replied.

Meanwhile, MSEB sources indicated that the board was ready to discuss the matter in the dispute resolution committee. There is no reason for the DPC to approach the international arbitrator. They will have to put the issue before the disputes resolution committee set up for redressal of the grievances against each other, the sources said.