Maytas working on a plan for Hyd Metro, Machilipatnam port

Maytas Infra Limited, promoted by the family of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, has said it was working on a plan for Hyderabad Metro Rail and Machilipatnam projects that it bagged in Andhra Pradesh.

The company failed to achieve financial closure for the Rs 12,100-crore metro project in March and had sought extension of the deadline by another six months. The decision on it is pending with the state government. Doubts were also expressed about its capabilities to execute the Rs 1,650-crore Machilipatnam project.

The Maytas board - which has six board of directors including four government-appointed members - met on Tuesday at Delhi and also decided to take up the construction of Gulbarga and Shimoga greenfield airports in Karnataka immediately.

The company ran into rough weather after Satyam made an abortive bid to acquire a 51 per cent stake in Maytas Infra and 100 per cent in Maytas Properties, another family firm, for about Rs 8,000 crore (about $1.6 billion).

The board also reviewed the progress of the corporate debt restructuring scheme with SBICaps as its consultant. The scheme was approved at a meeting on May 9 and the CDR Empowered Group had met on May 14 in Mumbai. As many as 17 banks have a combined exposure of Rs 1,750 crore in the company.

The company has already set up four committees to focus on project management, audit, banking, finance and legal. However, the search for a chief executive officer is still on. The two presidents - CS Bansal and Rajendra Nimje- are at the helm of affairs now.

According to a company release, the board also approved the retention bonus plan for its employees and ratified the guidelines for the stock options scheme for its leadership team. Maytas Infra in recent months has closed certain operations and following this several employees have either resigned or have been asked to lookout for other options.

The company also said the 464-Mw Gautami gas-based combined cycle power plant in East Godavari, for which it is the joint developer, commenced operations recently.

Maytas Infra had earlier said its order book, excluding the Hyderabad Metro Rail project, was worth over Rs 8,500 crore and the projects were expected to be completed in two years. It had receivables of around Rs 500 crore and planned to raise Rs 800 crore to Rs 1,000 crore through asset sale, loan and guarantees from banks to complete the various projects and bid for new projects.