RGPPL may send staff to parent firms

Company official says, since July 15 there has not been power generation for want of gas

Ratnagiri Gas & Power Pvt Ltd (RGPPL), which operates the 1,967-Mw Dabhol power project, is mulling the repatriation of its employees to their parent organisations in view of the closure of the plant since July 15.

The company has about 215 employees — 107 from NTPC, 70 from GAIL India and 38 from  the RGPPL cadre.

An RGPPL official, who did not want to be identified, told Business Standard: “Since July 15, there has been no power generation for want of gas. Our repeated efforts to restore gas has to yield positive results. On top of it, we have to recover dues worth Rs 800 crore from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MahaVitaran) which draws 95 per cent of power from the project. In such a situation, the company is finding it difficult to maintain its present employee strength. Naturally, one of the options is sending them back to their parent organisation.”

However, the official said no decision in this regard has been taken by the board.

He said the company's monthly outgo towards salaries and perks is about Rs 1.16 crore.

RGPPL averted from becoming a defaulter from August as it was able to pay Rs 70 crore of the total monthly installment of Rs 108 crore towards debt servicing to the lenders. On September 1, the repayment of Rs 30 crore towards interest was made to the lenders. At the board meeting held last week,  RGPPL made a fresh plea to MahaVitaran for an early payment of its arrears.

RGPPL has a total debt of Rs 9,000 crore from ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, SBI and Canara Bank and since its restart in April 2006, it has so far repaid Rs 4,000 crore. The company's annual outgo towards debt servicing is Rs 1,300 crore.

The RGPPL spokesman admitted that there were issues but assured the company was making all efforts to quickly restart the project.

RGPPL has incurred a loss of Rs 1,156 crore towards fixed cost alone during 2012-13 as there was a total generation loss of 9,053 million units (MUs). Moreover, the company has incurred a loss of Rs 156 crore towards fixed cost, following the generation loss of 298 MUs during April and May 2013. RGPPL's generation loss was 3,095 MUs in 2011-12.