UP Power Corp invites bids for two power plants

The Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) has invited final bids from the qualifying companies, for the two proposed thermal power plants in the Allahabad district.

Sixteen companies, including Reliance Power, Lanco and Isolux Corsan, had submitted Request-for-Qualification (RFQ), and all of them have qualified for submitting the Request for Proposal (RFP).

The technical and financial bids would be opened on October 24 and 26 respectively, to select the company which can sell power at the lowest tariff, Corporation Managing Director Avnish Awasthi told Business Standard.

The government wants to set up two power plants at Bara (1,980 Mw) and Karchhna (1,320 Mw) in Allahabad, based on the Super Critical Technology. The RFQs were opened on September 1.

Bara has been bid by 9 firms — NTPC, Indiabulls, JP Power Ventures, Lanco, GVK, L&T, Adani Power, Reliance and Isolux. Karchhna has been bid by 14 companies – JSW Energy, L&T, KSK Energy, Indiabulls, Reliance, Lanco, GVK, Adhunik Metallics, Adani, Bhushan Steels, HDIL Energy, Videocon, CESC and JP.

The pre-bid conferences for the projects have been held to clear any doubts among the private parties. If things move as planned, the corporation wants to select a bidder and issue the Letter of Intend (LoI) by November 5 and sign the final agreement in the first week of December.

The state cabinet and the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC) will first ratify the selection process, before the agreement can be signed. The project has already got delayed by almost one year.

This is the third time that the state government has resorted to inviting bids for the projects, since there was lukewarm response from the private sector and the tariff quoted was “high”.

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