Bad weather defers Bara project bidding to Dec 10

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Lucknow: Already facing flak over the higher bid that have been received for the proposed 1,320- mw Karchchana power project , which is to be built on supercritical technology in Allahabad district, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation has now extended the last day for submitting financial bids for the 1,980-mw Bara powerhouse in Allahabad till December 10.

The bids, that were supposed to be opened on November 30, have been postponed after officials at the UPPCL decided that it would be better to wait until bids for the 4,000-mw Tilaiya ultra mega power project in Jharkhand come in by the first week of December.

With market sentiments running rough, officials feel that just like the high bids received for the Karchchana project, Bara too will attract higher bids. And if high rates are quoted for the Tilaiya project, as are expected, officials of the state energy department will find it easy to get higher rates for both the Bara and Karchchana projects passed by the energy task force (ETF).

Until now, the ETF has been dithering in giving its stamp of approval for the higher rates quoted by the Jaypee Associates, the lowest bidder for the Karchchana project, as it could not justify as to why it should approve such high rates when it had rejected the earlier two lower bids quoted by Lanco Infratech and Reliance Power on the grounds that they were high.

According to sources in the energy department, state officials are already in a bind over the high rates that it has received for Karchchana and expect the same to happen when bids for the Bara power project are opened. In a move to buy time, the date for opening the bids for Bara have been postponed till December 10, by which time bids for the Tilaiya project are expected.

In fact, the deadline for submitting bids for Tilaiya project, too, has been extended from the first week of November to December after several companies asked for deferring the next round of bidding as they feared they wouldn’t be able to raise funds in a tightening credit market. Nine companies, including Tata Power, NTPC, Reliance Power, Essar Power, L&T and Sterlite Industries had submitted RFQ for the prestigious Tilaiya UMPP.