PowerMin sets up group to identify transmission lines

NEW DELHI: In a bid to encourage competition and attract private investment in the sector, the Power Ministry has set up a core group of experts to identify transmission projects that would be taken up by private firms.

The Empowered Committee, headed by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission member Bhanu Bhushan, would also select the developer for the projects through a tariff-based competitive bidding process, a government official told the agency.

Other members of the committee are Central Electricity Authority Member (Power Systems) V Ramakrishna, Power Grid Corporation's Director (Projects) S Majumdar, Planning Commission deputy advisor Shabir Khan and Power Ministry Director Jiwesh Nandan.

The official said that the committee has already held its first meeting and initiated the process to identify power transmission lines for private participation. The panel is likely to identify a few lines within a month, he said.

Central and state government-owned agencies and joint venture companies will also be eligible to bid, so that there is sufficient competition among the bidders.

The bids could be conducted either in one stage or two stages, comprising Request for Qualification and Request for Proposal, but would have to be completed within 240 days from the date of publishing of RfQ documents.

While as per the ministry's guidelines for encouraging competition in transmission sector, the bids are to be conducted by a Bid Process Coordinator, but until a BPC is set up the Empowered Committee would take care of the functions.

The decision to set up the core group was taken in view of the fact that within the power sector, the transmission segment has seen participation from only a handful of private companies.

In fact, no private company has so far executed any transmission project on its own. Only one company - Tata Power - has so far made a presence in the segment. The Tata group company has formed a joint venture with central transmission utility Power Grid Corp for implementing the Tala transmission line project, which is expected to be commissioned shortly.

PGCIL is also in the process of setting up more joint ventures with Essar Power, Torrent, Jindal, Reliance Energy and IL&FS to evacuate electricity from their generation projects.