Regional hydro power companies get 15 days to send their views on mega merger

The meeting follows protests from smaller hydro companies against the NHPC's plans to unify all firms

The government on Monday asked heads of state-owned hydro electric units to register within two weeks their views on NHPC's plans to merge them all into one single entity.

Officials from the ministry of power told this to representatives of hydro power companies at a review meeting here.

"The power ministry has asked the CMDs of THDC, NEEPCO and SJVNL to send a final consideration report on the idea to merge all the hydro entities," said an executive of one of the companies who attended the meeting.

Another executive said the discussion was aimed at looking at micro-level problems of each organisation. "The financial aspects have been discussed but with every company, come its sets of physical, human and regional issues. These are of prime importance to the government if it looks to merge the operations to one national hydro company," he said.

The meeting followed in the wake of protests from smaller hydro companies against the NHPC's plans to bring all firms under one umbrella organisation.

According to a report prepared by SBI Caps at the behest of NHPC, the proposed mega entity to control all Union government-run hydro power companies is likely to have a market capitalisation of Rs 51,000 crore and a government stake of up to 81 per cent. The 10-page report has forecast a profit after tax of Rs 2,931 crore annually for the merged organisation. The incomplete report has already drawn resistance from the smaller companies.

In its letter to the power ministry, SJVNL said it was not kept in the loop about the preparation of the report. "The concept paper on integration of central hydro PSUs in India was not discussed by NHPC with any of the CMDs before submitting to the ministry of power," letter said.

Further, certain facts have not been truly and appropriately reflected in this report,"said the letter.