Thaindian News

Bhubaneswar, Feb 3 (IANS) Maytas Infra - the infrastructure company floated by the promoter-family of scam-tainted Satyam Computer Services - has lost another project in Orissa.Hyderabad-based KVK Energy, which is setting up a Rs.50-billion (Rs.5,000-crore), 1,050 MW coal-fired power project in Cuttack district, Tuesday said Maytas was no longer its joint venture partner.

“We informed the Orissa government last week that we will go ahead with the project without Maytas,” R.C. Mohapatra, executive director of KVK Nilachal Power, a subsidiary of KVK Energy, told IANS here.

Last month, Vedanta Alumina, promoted by the UK-based diversified mining company Vedanta Resources, dropped Maytas as its infrastructure developer partner in a Rs.2.33-billion township project.

KVK Energy and Maytas each had a 25.5 percent stake each in the power project, with the remaining 49 percent proposed to be vested with a strategic investor.

KVK now plans to acquire the Maytas stake, which will give it a controlling 51 percent interest in the project, Mohapatra said.

KVK Nilachal is scheduled to commence construction work on the first phase in the second half of this year, and complete the entire project in three phases by 2011.

The power plant requires some 1,100 acres of land including about 700 acres owned by the government. KVK has already acquired about 300 acres of private land.

Maytas Infra, promoted by a son of Satyam’s disgraced founder B. Ramalinga Raju, last month similarly lost a contract awarded to it by Vedanta Alumina.

Maytas was awarded the contract in 2007 to develop a township in Jharsuguda district on an investment of about Rs.2.33 billion (Rs.233 crore). The integrated township is proposed to be spread over about 70 acres and accommodate about 700 families.

A Vedanta spokesperson had told IANS the contract was terminated as Maytas had made little progress in developing the project.