#86 Manoj Warrier: Jun 22, 2009 10:21:04

NR : Manoj, hi. Where are you?

M: Just reaching office

NR: Acchaa listen what do you make of Sunil Jain's article, it's neither here nor there, it’s so stupid

M: [laughter]

NR: Theres no central point, I don’t think he even knows what he’s talking about. I mean his whole argument about whom we invited for a bid is based on the gas utilisation policy [unclear] . I mean we could have invited the steel guys we could have invited the glass guys naa and then the price would have been higher.

M: Nahi nahi nahi humne jo formula government ko submit kiya tha, that was based on a set of bids that he received. We had selected 5 top power and 5 top fertilizer companies apart from NTPC.

NR: Correct

M: So He is saying, you know, it should have been a free for all bid, you should not have restricted the bid to a select set of people.

NR: The price would have been higher then

M: Yeah it could have been either ways.

NR: .. a free for all because I know for a fact that Prasad Menon was told by Prasad.. PMS Prasad not to bid more than .. Prasad had bid 5 dollars. You know that?

M: hmmm

NR: It was these guys who told him don’t go excessively overboard because Prasad had bid 5 dollars.

M : hmmm

NR: And then the other issue would have been if we had allowed the steel companies, they are desperate for gas

M: No no the other thing that he is saying is that you put only some part of the gas on bid. You said only 10-15 mmscmd of gas is available instead of saying that 80 mmscmd is available which would have automatically .. the bidders would have believed that there is sufficient amount of gas and therefore they wouldn’t have bid it high. It what case [unclear] logic [unclear] [cut off by NR]

NR: What nonsense, let's look at it the other way. Let's say we had kept it open to all

M: haan then, he is depending on the economic advisory council’s comment that he has quoted in the paper saying that there is some element of [unclear]

NR: Well I think that uh… if we look it the other way round, if I’d kept it free for all, I would have gone for the highest price and provided them the gas pipes na… Prasad Menon bid 5, and if the steel companies willing to bid 7 and 9, then tho inki tho turn hi nahi aati 2.34 ki “Mhmm”. I think it cuts both ways.. I don’t think you know he knows what he is talking about. Because he is also not relying on the fact

M: right (!)

NR: that he is saying the gas.. that your electricity will be impacted. Right?

M: He is coming from the fact that because these 2 contracts were not honoured, 10,000 MW have not been generated. Which means that he has accepted their argument that because we did not sign the contract , the projects have not gone on street.

NR: But he needs to revisit their history and see if they have added even 1 MW of power anywhere else.

M: Yeah yeah absolutely

NR: Right? That is one. Secondly, I don’t think he has visited the land acquisition part and thirdly whatever the government , whatever agreements and power projects are setting up independent, I would imagine Dadri is an IPP, its based on a grid formula which is PPA, is he going to go and reduce that cost? Unless he going to merchant .. and then maybe he looks at setting up part merchant and then it will be even more.

M: hmmm

NR: Where is he coming from? I think Sunil Jain has written for heck of writing.

M: hmmmm

NR: I think , I think we should respond and I think we should say your arguments are a little obtuse. Really, we shouldn’t, but a letter to the editor

M: hmmm

NR: from another naam saying that we want RIL to say that the arguments are obtuse. And I think we should do that

M: hmmm

NR: because at least that should get carried you know?

M: theek hai theek hai

NR: The other thing is Murli Deora has made another statement yesterday

M: who?

NR: Muril Deora

M: haan Financial Times mein

NR: Yeah.. he’s gone.. I haven’t understood his statement, I mean ,

M: hmmm

NR: I mean he says that let the judges sort it out but then he also says that he will intervene, right?