Piramal heads back to Europe

The wait is finally over. Now K.S.Raju will get a chance to get on with his power project and Karnataka will get hope for relief from its sad power supply situation. Raju is as happy as can be for his 1015 MW thermal power project scheduled to come up in Karnataka will now have the Power Finance Corporation funding its Rs 3,000 crore debt. The tycoon has also secured for the project a ‘‘mega power project’’ status. This will make his Nagarjuna group exempt from all import and customs duties. Raju is now trying to choose who to hand over the $700 million engineering, procurement and construction contract for this project. A Chinese consortium and BHEL are standing in the waiting line. A strategic investor will also be chosen, who will then part with 49 per cent of the project to a Southeast Asian company that will be put in charge of operations and maintenance of the plant. The Nagarjuna project, once it comes up should start producing power after three years, and as everyone hopes, come to the aid of the power deficit that haunts Karnataka. At present there is a 2,250 MW deficit, which is only showing signs of increasing as the years go by.

But things were not always easy for Raju whose project was held up last year when the state government refused to provide a guarantee and a bankable Payment Security Mechanism (PSM). Only after he fought a long legal battle, did he get his wish of the government providing a PSM, where if a bulk buyer failed to meet the company’s dues, the state government would provide the necessary support.Now that his power sector is on the move, Raju can shift his concentration to Nagarjuna’s other interests in fertilisers, chemicals, IT and life sciences. And Karnataka can hope for some good power filled days.

Cool UP

Trust Amrita Patel to enter a new market in style. She is taking her Mother Dairy ice creams to the markets of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh through 4,000 new outlets. Mother Dairy is already a leader in the capital and is spreading to the NCR region. But not satisfied with that alone, she now wants to head for the neighbouring states, which is obvious with her latest move. The shift into these states began in April with new flavours and new products. What was surprising was in spite of all the turmoil between the GCMMF (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation) and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) or rather, between Verghese Kurien and Amrita Patel, Mother Dairy still managed to register a healthy growth in the last year. At present NDDB’s Chillz brand of ice creams, has been aimed at the youth rather well. Now consumers will see new flavours like rum and raisin and bubblegum hitting shops and vendors. While concentrating on ice cream, the NDDB chief has also taken time out to launch the Mother Dairy dairy whitener. This move into the Rs 200 crore dairy whitener market, where companies like Nestle and GCMMF are majorly present, is evidence that she wants to make Mother Dairy the leader in all categories of milk products. Or maybe, it’s just to be a competitor in everything that Amul tries its hand at.

Dilip Cherian, runs the public relations firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker. The people he writes about are not clients. Send your insider dope to dilipcherian@now-india.net.in