Hyderabad: Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) has decided to sell its equity in L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Ltd (L&TMRH), the operator of Hyderabad Metro, and eventually move away from the project.
City-based renewable energy firm Greenko is likely to buy the stake, as per a statement given by D.K. Sen, director and senior executive vice-pre-sident (development) of L&T, here on Wednesday.
According to him, the L&T had planned to sell its non-performing assets and the Hyderabad Metro project was among them. The Hyderabad Metro is the world’s largest metro rail project under the public private partnership mode.
However, Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty, the CEO of Greenko Group, was unavailable for comment.
Though L&T Metro officials remained silent on this issue, the concessionaire agreement entered into by L&TMRH with Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd would facilitate the eventual disinvestment with the prior approval of the government. If L&T wants to disinvest beyond 15 per cent, it requires permission of the state government.
L&T has reportedly decided to offload its interest in Hyderabad Metro because of huge losses it incurred over the last two years. The state government, which is reeling in lower revenue realisations, refused to bail out the company.
In its annual financial statement, L&TMRH rep-orted Rs. 1,766.74 crore loss during the financial year 2020-21 when the metro services were shut down for about six months due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
In the previous financial year, L&T Metro had reported a loss of Rs. 382.20 crore.
L&T Metro continued to post losses this year because of limited operations during the second Covid wave.
As on March 31, 2021, the gross fixed and intangible assets including leased assets of L&TMRH has been put at Rs. 17.713.28 crore and the net fixed and intangible assets, including leased assets at Rs. 17,180.07 crore. Capital expenditure has been Rs. 276.19 crore and loans to the tune of Rs. 13,213.33 crore.
HMRL authorities said they were yet to hear the same from the private firm.
A senior HMRL official requesting anonymity told this newspaper that the government did not receive any information from L&T and claims of disinvestment were only speculation.
L&T identified three non-core assets for sale — Nabha Power, a 2x700 MW supercritical thermal power plant at Rajpura, Punjab, the L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Ltd (L&T IDPL), a subsidiary primarily engaged in road projects and power transmission lines and Hyderabad Metro.
