Sasan casts shadow on other projects

MUMBAI: Krishnapatnam and Tilaiya ultra mega power projects (UMPP) remain engulfed in the dark. The submission of request for proposal (RFP) for Krishnapatnam is delayed by six months. Now, the consultative committee of the power ministry, chaired by union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, has postponed the date for the fifth time to September 21.

For Tilaiya UMPP in Jharkhand, Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the nodal agency for UMPPs, has so far not announced the qualified companies that submitted request for qualification (RFQ). Ten bidders had submitted their RFQs on April 10.

“The expected changes in bidding norms, delays in land acquisition, absence of a uniform rehabilitation policy and environmental concerns have held up the ground work of UMPPs in the country. PFC’s time-table has gone haywire, after the controversy over the Sasan UMPP for the alleged misrepresentation made by Globeleq Singapore-Lanco consortium,” said a power ministry official.

The consultative committee has decided to postpone the RFP of the Krishnapatnam project and the pre-qualification bid for the Tilaiya by a month. A final call is expected to be taken only after the inter-ministerial committee, formed to look into certain components of RFQ and RFP, submits its report to the empowered group of ministers (EGoM). “The committee will take a month to submit its report. So, for the interim period, the developments on both the Krishnapatnam and Tilaiya power projects have been put on hold,” said the official.

The committee is examining issues, which include laying down specific conditions to ensure definite commitment to the project on the part of the participating consortiums, complete authorisation from the parent company on behalf of the subsidiary companies participating in the consortium and also redefine the role of consultants engaged in the project appraisal stage. “We are contemplating on how much the process can be tightened to remove any room for ambiguity,” added the official.

Originally, the submission of Krishnapatnam RFP was slated for March 9, which was deferred till April 11 and subsequently to May 25 and thereafter, to August 24. Tata Power Company (TPC), Reliance Energy (REL), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Essar Power, Sterlite, Larsen and Toubro (L&T), Torrent, AES, DS Construction and Sumitomo are the qualified bidders of the project.

The deadline for Tilaiya RFQ was March 20, which was postponed to April 10. The date change was conveyed to the bidders after the expiry of the deadline. TPC, Jindal Steel & Power, Sterlite, Essar, Vishal Exports, REL, Torrent, NTPC, AES and Bian Vijaya SDN Berhard (Malaysia) have submitted RFQs.

After the first two UMPPs — Mundra and Sasan — were awarded, the ministry has not made much headway in the remaining mega power projects. For the five UMPPs of the total nine, final clearances from respective state governments are still awaited.

The governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka have been asked to indicate alternative sites for relocating their UMPPs after the earlier identified sites of Girye and Tadri faced agitation on environmental issues. Power ministry sources said there had been no communication from the state governments of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu for the remaining UMPPs.