Hinduja power contract may imperil coalfield

The Union Cabinet’s decision to model all future fuel supply contracts for power projects on the lines of the agreement for the 1,040 MW Hinduja power project at Visakhapatnam may well sound the death-knell for the domestic coal industry What sticks out in the agreement, currently being negotiated between Hinduja National Power Corporation Ltd (HNPCL) and Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), a Coal India (CH) subsidiary, are clauses that seek to penalise MCL for up to Rs. 1,200 crores a year in the event of a shortfall in supply. The value of the contract to supply 48 million tonnes of coal a year is just Rs. 162 crores.

Nynex, Bell Atlantic pull out of tie-ups

The US telecom majors, Nynex and Bell Atlantic, who had merged into a single entity in their home country, have decided to pull out of their joint ventures in India Nynex is in partnership with Reliance Telecom and Bell Atlantic with Essar Telecom Both have 10 per cent stakes in the joint ventures Both of them have written to their joint venture partners informing them about their decision to pull out of India The joint ventures of Reliance Telecom are about to go operational Essar Telecom is awaiting licence for its basic telephony project.

Task force on PSU share offer norms

A high-powered task force is to be set up by the Core Group of Secretaries to look into details of the divestment of shares of PSUs to be selected by the Government from among those forwarded by the Disinvestment Commission The task force is to comprise top officials drawn from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry, the Department of Public Enterprises and the administrative ministry under which the particular PSU falls.

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