Price bids for Tilaiya ultra mega project by May-end

Price bids for the 4,000-Mw Tilaiya ultra mega power project (UMPP) in Jharkhand are likely to be invited by the end of May.

This would be the fourth UMPP in the series of nine that are planned to be set up.

Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the nodal agency for implementing these projects, is in the final stages of completing the evaluation of the Requests for Qualification (RFQ) received for the Tilaiya project in November.

"The evaluation of bids has reached the final stage of completion. The official announcement of successful bidders will be made soon," said Satnam Singh, chairman of Jharkhand Integrated Power Ltd, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) floated for the project. 
 

IN THE PIPELINE
UMPP	Status
Tilaiya, Jharkhand	RFQ evaluation almost completed, price bids likely by May-end,coal blocks allocated, environment clearance obtained, forest clearance applied for
Orissa	Site finalised at Sundergarh, water allocation awaited,the state government negotiating for higher share of power
Karnataka	Feasibility of site "" Ghataprabha "" being examined by the CEA
Maharashtra	Site to be identified
Chhattisgarh	Site to be identified
Tamil Nadu	Site to be identified

There are 13 applicants seeking qualification for the pit-head project "" Reliance Energy Ltd, Tata Power Company, NTPC, Torrent Power, Essar, Sterlite, Citra Thermal Power and Infrastructure, Malaysia's Dian Wijaya, Jindal Steel and Power, AES, GVK Power, L&T and the Lanco-Genting consortium.

However, not all of them are believed to have qualified to bid, according to officials. "There are going to be 11 bidders in the final race," they said.

The project, like all other UMPPs, will be awarded on the basis of tariff-based competitive bidding.

The names of the companies, which did not qualify, were not immediately known.

RFQs for the Tilaiya project were re-invited last year to accommodate the tighter norms for eligibility introduced after the controversy over the Sasan ultra mega project in Madhya Pradesh, where the winning bidder was disqualified at the final stage.

The Sasan project was finally handed over to Reliance Power Ltd, which has also bagged the Krishnapatnam project in Andhra Pradesh. The other ultra mega project at Mundra project in Gujarat is owned by Tata Power.