Maytas wants Reliance Infra as Hyderabad Metro partner

Maytas Infra?the infrastructure company headed by Teja Raju, son of B Ramalinga Raju, has confirmed approaching Reliance Infra to support the over Rs 12,000 Hyderabad Metro Project back on track.

K Ramalingam, the government nominated chairman on the board of Maytas Infra told FE, ?yes, we are talking to Reliance (Infra) and others for the metro rail project?. But he refused to get into the details. It is believed that the board is trying to convince Reliance Infra to join the consortium as a partner in the project. The officials had approached Anil Ambani group firm last week on the issue. However, Ved Jain, director on the board of Maytas maintained that he was not aware of any such development. ?We are still pursuing with the Andhra Pradesh government to get some more time for achieving financial closure for the Metro Rail project?, he said.

According to agency reports, on Tuesday, Ramalingam met the state chief minister Y S R Reddy and proposed a re-grouping of the consortium for the project. In the proposed structure, Reliance Infra could be given as high as 84 %, with the rest held by Maytas, it said.

The concession agreement for the project was signed in September 2008 between the state and Maytas. Experts had expressed surprise at the financial architecture of the project as it claimed a high level of solvency for an infrastructure project. But the project got into a real mess after the Satyam fiasco. The company was not able to achieve financial closure for this project on time and sought a six month extension in March 2009. Though the AP government had not openly accepted the request nor did it come out publicly about the extension.

Hyderabad Metro Project was planned on private-public-partnership model. Maytas had bagged the project with other consortium members Nava Bharat, Ital Thai and IL & FS. At the time of the concession agreement, Maytas had committed to hold 26% equity, Nava Bharat-16%, Ital Thai and IL&FS-5% each. The state government had also agreed to maintain 11%. The balance of 37% equity was to come from FIs.