NTPC pays highest-ever interim dividend of Rs2473.64-crore

NTPC Limited, India's largest power utility, has paid the highest-ever interim dividend of Rs2,473.64 crore - a 30 per cent (or Rs3 per equity share) return on the paid-up equity share capital of the company - for the 2009-10 financial year. Out of this, an amount of Rs2,090.21 crore was paid to government of India, which holds 84.5 per cent of NTPC's paid-up equity.

R S Sharma, CMD of NTPC, handed over an advice confirming the credit of Rs2,090.21 crore into government's account to union minister of power Sushilkumar Shinde in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The state-run power utility has consistently been paying dividend and this is the 17th consecutive year that NTPC has declared dividend.

NTPC, with an installed power generation capacity of over 31,000 MW, also commissioned a "growth management centre", the first in the power sector, at its corporate office in New Delhi. The centre houses three strategic departments - project monitoring , operation monitoring and investors services - that are core to the functioning of the company.

Equipped with state of the art communication and display systems with large video walls for conferencing, the centre will be linked to the ministry of power and the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

NTPC said this is in line with the company's policy of maximising value for all the stakeholders.