Power Corporation seeks clarification from firms

Moving ahead on the heartwarming response from the private sector power majors, bidding to set up two power plants in Uttar Pradesh, the UP Power Corporation has sought certain clarifications from some companies.

The clarifications pertain to additional information related to bidding and are likely to be submitted by tomorrow. A total of 16 companies, including Reliance Power, Lanco Kondapalli and Spanish firm Isolux Corsan, had submitted Request-for-Qualification (RFQ) for Bara (9 bids) and Karchhna (14 bids). The bids were opened on Sept 1.

“Although, the papers of all the bidding companies have been found in order, certain information or authorised signatures at stipulated places are missing in some of them,” UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) Managing Director Avnish Awasthi told Business Standard.

He informed that if these companies failed to submit the required information by tomorrow, they may be granted conditional qualification status to continue with the process of selecting the lowest tariff-based bidder.

A high-level committee is evaluating the bids and only qualifying companies would be eligible to submit Request for Proposal (RFP).

The state government wants to set up two thermal power plants at Bara and Karchhna in Allahabad district totalling 3,300 Megawatt (Mw).

Bara has been bid by NTPC, Indiabulls, JP Power Ventures, Lanco, GVK, L&T, Adani Power, Reliance and Isolux, while Karchhna has been bid by JSW Energy, L&T, KSK Energy, Indiabulls etc.

Reliance, Adani, Bhushan Steels, HDIL Energy, Videocon, CESC and JP.

Three units and two units of 660 Mw each is proposed to be set up at Bara (1,980 Mw) and Karchhna (1,320 Mw) respectively based on the Super Critical Technology.

This was the third time that the state government had resorted to inviting bids for the two projects, since there was only a lukewarm response from the private sector earlier, while the tariff quoted was also high.

On July 19, the state Energy Task Force (ETF) had recommended invitation of fresh bids, since the lowest bid of Reliance was noted to be quite high.

In the first bidding, Lanco had quoted the lowest tariff. However, the UPPCL called for fresh quotations from the bidding companies to bring down the tariff.

In the subsequent bidding, Reliance had quoted the lowest tariff of Rs 2.64 and Rs 2.60 per unit for Bara and Karchhna respectively, which was only a paisa lower than the previous Lanco bids.

The state government is aiming at augmenting its power generation capacity by 10,000 Mw in the current 11th Five Year Plan.