`Corruption' in Tamil Nadu power body puts government on a sp

CHENNAI: AIADMK had said in 2011 the state's power crisis would be resolved in a year A political tirade against the ruling AIADMK and alleged corruption in the state's power utility is threatening to snowball as the state government watches developments in silence. First, it was a statement from PMK convenor Dr S Ramadoss, next from DMK treasurer MK Stalin.

Both alleging large-scale corruption in the power utility and the trigger was the cancellation of bids for a Rs 9,000-crore power project. The opposition is technically hitting the state where it hurts the most, as the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government, after coming to power in 2011, had promised that the state's power crisis will be resolved within a year.

The opposition parties are picking on the point that the state could not manage a turnaround even four years later and the debt-laden state power utility Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited TANGEDCO's debts continued to rise. The 1,320MW Udangudi power project bid was in the works for the past 24 months after global tenders were floated.

An Indo-Chinese consortium and BHEL emerged as two final bidders for the project.A source close to the development said: “TANGEDCO's decision to lodge and call for fresh tenders in Udangudi Tender, after having evaluated the Chinese consortium as the lowest bidder for the project, is all set to go back to the Madras High Court“. This is the second instance wherein the Consortium will be approaching the Madras High Court.

Earlier, the consortium had approached the High Court alleging that TANGEDCO had improperly evaluated the financial bids submitted for the Ennore 2x660 MW Supercritical Thermal Project and that it was the lowest bidder and not BHEL. The High Court decision on the Ennore Tender is awaited.

A TANGEDCO official maintained: “the decision is purely technical. Both BHEL and the Chinese consortium failed to give us some mandatory forms that were supposed to be submitted with the bids and so the tendering process has been cancelled and we will call for fresh tenders very soon. This time, we will try and finish the process very soon without any delay“.