BSEB to invite bid for privatisation of Patna electric supply

Bihar State Electricity Board (BESB) will once again invite bids for the privatisation of electric supply of Patna. It will be the third attempt by the BSEB for outsourcing of the city electrical distribution and revenue collection.

Earlier, the board scraped the Letter of Intent (LoI) to the Essar Power Ltd., which was selected for the process. On July 18, the board had written to the Mumbai based company offering it to handle the electrical supply and revenue collection of the state capital. However, "the company wanted some modifications in the deal, which were against the terms of acceptance," said spokesman of BSEB, "so, we were left with no choice, but to scrape the LoI. We will begin the process afresh." Essar Power was selected after tiresome bidding process, which took more than a year to complete. It was the only bidder for the project.

He added, "We will hopefully float new tenders by the end of the month. It will be based on the standard bidding document of the Power Ministry. It will be a very transparent affair.