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ShareHyderabad: K Ramalingam, the government-appointed chairman of Maytas Infrastructure, on Tuesday met Andhra Pradesh chief minister YSRajasekhar Reddy in a bid to salvage the Hyderabad Metro project.
Reddy had earlier said the company will be out of the project if it is unable to achieve financial closure.
Ramalingam is said to have requested Reddy to keep Maytas in the project, at least as a minority partner. Maytas is now trying woo Anil Ambani's Reliance Infrastructure to the consortium.
Getting Reliance to join the consortium, which has IL&FS, Ital Thai and Nava Bharat as the other partners, will help the Hyderabad-based Maytas take the project forward, is the line of thinking.
Maytas had to achieve financial closure for the Rs 12,000 crore project by March 18. Though it missed the deadline, the government-appointed board of the company is trying to convince the state government to allow it to regroup the consortium and execute the project, sources close to the development told DNA.
Earlier in the year, the project suffered a major setback when B Ramalinga Raju, the founder of Satyam Computer Services and one of the promoters of Maytas, confessed to a multi-crore fraud in the IT company.
Though Maytas is seeking an extension of the deadline to raise funds for the project, its chances of success remain in question.
"At a time when the company is going in debt restructuring for its Rs 1,700 crore loans, the chances of raising fresh loans of about Rs 10,000 crore are doubtful even if it is given more time," a source said.
However, if given time, the company may be able to regroup the consortium.
From being the leader of the consortium, Maytas is now willing to become a minority partner, the source said.
Incidentally, Reliance Infra was one of the bidders shortlisted for the Hyderabad Metro project. However, Maytas eventually bagged the project after it emerged the lowest bidder and did not ask for viability gap funding.
"Regrouping is a major legal issue the government will have to address. In the case of Maytas, the consortium had volunteered to pay the government about Rs 30,000 crore as reverse grant. Other bidders did not talk about it. Now, one has to see if the reverse grant is still valid after the regrouping," the source said.
The source also pointed to the possibility of unsuccessful bidders litigating if Maytas is allowed to remain in charge of the project despite its inability to achieve financial closure.
