Power majors Reliance Power, Lanco Kondapalli, Adani Power and JP Power Ventures have submitted their bids for the proposed power plant at Karchhna in Allahabad district of Uttar Pradesh.
The technical bids of these firms have been started by UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL), which has also sought some clarifications from the four companies.
“Some clarifications have been sought from all the four firms on their technical bids, which are likely to be received today,” UPPCL managing director Avnish Awasthi told Business Standard. Later, a decision would be taken on the financial bids, which would complete the bidding process.
Meanwhile, another proposed power plant at Bara in Allahabad would first be cleared by the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC), since certain basic specifications have been changed therein.
“Only after the project is cleared by the ERC, the process of seeking and opening bids for Bara would be undertaken,” Awasthi informed. The government wants to set up power plants at Bara (1,980 Mw) and Karchhna (1,320 Mw) based on the super critical technology. The project has already delayed by almost one year.
Earlier, 16 companies, including Reliance, Lanco and Isolux Corsan, had submitted request for qualification (RFQ) for the two power plants and all of them had qualified for submitting request for proposal (RFP). The RFQs were opened on September 1.
RFQs for Bara were submitted by 9 firms — NTPC, Indiabulls, JP Power Ventures, Lanco, GVK, L&T, Adani Power, Reliance and Isolux, whereas 14 companies, including JSW Energy, L&T, Indiabulls, Reliance, Lanco, GVK and Videocon, had bid for Karchhna.
This is the third time that the state government had resorted to inviting bids for the projects, since there had earlier been only 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 steep.
In 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 subsequent bidding, Reliance quoted the lowest tariff of Rs 2.64 and Rs 2.60 per unit for Bara and Karchhna respectively – only a paisa less than previous Lanco bids.
