Maytas Infra may be out of metro rail project

19 June 2009

Following Maytas Infra Limited's failure to achieve financial closure for the Hyderabad Metro Rail project, the Andhra Pradesh government is reportedly considering executing the Rs12,100 crore project on its own with assistance from the centre.

Maytas had in March asked the government to extend the deadline for closure by six months.

The state government now has three options- an extension to Maytas, the second option is to ask the Hyderabad Metro consortium, including Maytas, Nav Bharat, Ital Thai and IL&FS, to change the lead partner and the third is to ask the centre to fund the project.

The first option may be practically ruled out as Maytas is reportedly in no position to achieve financial closure and finding new partners would not be an easy proposition in the present day uncertain economic scenario. The government therefore appears to favour the third option of executing the project on its own.

In July last year, HMRL, the special purpose vehicle formed to implement the project had finalised the Maytas led consortium comprising Nava Bharat Ventures Limited, Italian-Thai Development Plc and IL FS for executing the project through an open bidding process.

The consortium had committed contributions amounting to Rs 30,311 crore during the 34-year concession period. This included Rs11 crore on agreement, Rs50 crore on financial closure and Rs200 crore in the fourth year, Rs100 crore each in seventh, eighth and ninth year and Rs1,750 crore for the 18 th and each successive year.