New bidding norms for power projects in a month's time

NEW DELHI: New bidding norms for power plants would be out in a month's time, Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia today said.

"The new Standard Bidding Documents or SBDs would be out in the next 3-4 weeks," Scindia said here at an award function.

He added that the new SBDs are in their last lap of finalisation.

The Power Ministry provisionally finalised the new standard bidding documents in July last year.

As per the provisional documents there is no change in the present bidding norms for projects based on imported coal.

As far as the domestic fuel-based projects are concerned, the Ministry has proposed having separate set of bidding norms for coal linkage and captive coal projects.

The projects where the location of the plant is not specified the bidding would be done amongst the domestic coal linkage holders who have uncontracted capacities under long term PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) through competitive bidding.

The SBDs will be approved by an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM). The meeting of the EGOM is yet to be finalised.

As far as the domestic fuel-based projects are concerned, the Ministry has proposed a separate set of bidding norms for coal linkage and captive coal projects.

Meanwhile, the government today allowed power producers to pass on higher cost of imported coal to consumers.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), has approved the pass through proposal, which would result increase in power tariff.