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Maharashtra must pay Enron Rs 1.52 billion by Tuesday

Just a day after paying one overdue bill, Maharashtra faces a Tuesday evening deadline for paying more money owed to US energy giant Enron Corp.

The new deadline is for payment of Rs 1.52 billion ($32.66 million) owed to Enron's Indian outfit, Dabhol Power Company (DPC), for power it provided to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) in December.

Failure to pay would set the stage for yet another round of confrontation between Enron, India's largest foreign investor in power sector, and Maharashtra, India's most industrialised state.

Last week, DPC took the unprecedented step of invoking the federal government's counter guarantee after Maharashtra failed to pay Rs 790 million for power supplied in November.

The state eventually paid that bill on Monday.

Under an agreement with Enron signed in the mid 1990s, both the Maharashtra state government and the central government have agreed to pay Enron in case of default by the state utility.

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