BSES chairman and managing director RV Shahi told reporters on Monday that the company hopes to seek the techno-economic clearances from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), environment clearancess from the state environment department and the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority and other relevant approvals from the central and state governments within six months.

Mr Shahi said his company would abide by the ruling of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) on the matter of payment of standby charges to Tata Power. MSEB, which had given a NOC to BSES on this condition, has also referred the dispute between BSES and Tata Power on standby charges to MERC.

Mr Shahi said that the company would seek clarifications from the MSEB on the implementation of the phase-I involving 200 mw initially as recommended by the Kukde committee. ``We would like to have clear directions from MSEB whether we should go in for two phases together,'' he said.

Mr Shahi said that his company has already tied up with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for the supply of 0.85 million cubic meters per day gas for the Saphale project. ``However, efforts are on to seek more gas supply as use of naphtha would not be economically viable,'' he said.

Mr Shahi said that his company would fund the equity of Saphale project fully through internal accruals, adding that the debt-equity ratio would be .35 per cent. He informed that the engineering tenders for this project had already been floated.

Mr Shahi said that his company had decided to concentrate on cost reduction in the current fiscal especially by improving power generation at Dahanu plant and reducing distribution lossess. ``The Dahanu plant is able to generate power at 90 per cent while the company has succeeded in cutting distribution losses from 15 per cent to 11.5 per cent. This has been able to generate nearly Rs 65 to 70 crore,'' he added.