With warring parties thrashing out a settlement over Dabhol Power Company, multinational power majors GE and Bechtel on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court with consent terms to end their multi-pronged litigation over DPC, first promoted by US-major Enron.

With minor issues in the consent terms yet to be ironed out, a Bench comprising Justice S N Variava and Justice A R Lakshmanan posted for Wednesday the recording of the consent, which could see the end of the legal battles fought fiercely by both sides in the apex court.

The consent terms, which outlined the settlement reached between GE, Bechtel, Maharashtra Government and the financial institutions, could facilitate early start of the controversy ridden ambitious power project.

The government had on July 12 settled all claims of GE and Bechtel for a total payout of Rs 1,330 crore (Rs 13.3 billion), following which the two companies have agreed to help the restart of the project, which is expected to take place in July 2006.

Maharashtra Power Development Company Ltd has paid Rs 630 crore (Rs 6.3 billion) to GE and Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) to Bechtel in lieu of all liabilities on behalf on the Indian parties.

Of this amount, Rs 495 crore (Rs 4.95 billion) was towards outstanding bills of Maharashtra State Electricity Board to DPC, Rs 135 crore (Rs 1.35 billion) as grant from the FIs and Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) as loans from various banks. The Rs 700 crore loans would be repaid by FIs and the central government has given a comfort letter for it.

Following the agreements, the Dabhol power project which is defunct for five year now, would be commissioned in stages between July and December next year.