Trishe Consortium files plea challenging scrapping of power

A Chinese consortium today filed a petition in the High Court challenging scrapping of the Udangudi thermal power project tender and seeking a direction to state power utility TANGEDCO to award the tender to it, taking into account its bid which had earlier been evaluated as the lowest.
Justice S. Vaidhyanathan ordered issue of notice to TANGEDCO when the petition came up.
TANGEDCO had earlier rejected the bids of BHEL and CSEPDI-Trishe Consortium for the 2X660 MW Udangudi Supercritical Thermal Power Project due to some infirmities.
The Consortium had earlier moved the Court for a direction to TANGEDCO to furnish its order along with the reasons for rejecting the bids and scrapping the tender.

When the matter came up before Justice T.S. Sivagnanam on Thursday, Advocate General A L Somayaji had produced a copy of State Tender Bulletin in which it was published that in a board meeting held by Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) on March 13, it was decided to reject the bids submitted by Central Southern China Electric Power Design Institute, a Chinese Company (CSEPDI) and BHEL.
The petitioner filed the present petition alleging that TANGEDCO adopted a discriminatory method and with a malafide intention scrapped the tender notification itself.

The petitioner sought a direction for quashing the order on scrapping the tender notification and to direct TANGEDCO to award the tender to it taking into account its bid which had earlier been evaluated as the lowest.

CSEPDI had earlier contended that that they submitted the lowest bid on July 19, 2013 quoting Rs 8025.34 crore for the project. The bids were opened on October 18 last in the presence of CSEPDI and BHEL, which offered a loan amount of 75 per cent of the total amout with an interest rate of 12.25 per cent.
The petitioner said when they were waiting to receive intimation on the results of the bid, they came to know from newspapers that the bids were scrapped for "technical deficiencies." However, no communication from TANGEDCO was received, the petitioner said.
CSEPDI also sought a direction for producing relevant documents on scrapping of the bids to the power project.

Justice Sivagnanam had on March 23 directed TANGEDCO to submit the copy of the order scrapping the bids called for the project, following which Somayaji produced the copy of State Tender Bulletin rejecting the bids.