Four power companies seek to exit from PTC

Power Grid Corp of India, NTPC Ltd, NHPC Ltd and Power Finance Corp on Tuesday sought government approval to sell their entire stake in power trader PTC India since, they say, it is creating a conflict of interest.

According to reports, representatives of the four state-owned companies met officials of the power ministry to make a request to offload their stake, since PTC is competing with them in the power utilities sector after it took the decision to diversify.

The four companies say that the decision taken by PTC to enter into new areas of business such as power generation and transmission, project financing, and coal mining, will set them competing in the same areas of business.

They add that their decision to sell their PTC holding is also to meet the Central Electricity Regulatory Authority's guideline on conflict of interest.

The problems between the four companies and PTC started when PTC moved away from its original mandate of being a power trading company and entered into power-project financing, acquiring a stake in Athena Energy Ventures. Athena's main business is to develop, construct and acquire power generation capacities.

PTC also recently started a financial services company called PTC India Financial Services Ltd, whose main business is to provide financial services to power companies.