NEW DELHI, February 15: State-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) will set up a separate joint venture hydro power company by 1999 in a bid to expand its operations from thermal to the hydel sector."We have already got approval from the power ministry and the corporation has set up an internal committee to identify the possible hydro potential projects and locations," NTPC sources said.
The hydro company will be in the joint sector with private participation, sources said, but did not rule out the possibility of NTPC tying up with the public sector National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC).
NTPC would not take pending hydro projects of NHPC that have slipped out of their plans and recorded huge cost escalations, sources said, pointing out that the navratna company would explore only new locations and new hydro projects.
On the total investment in the proposed hydro company, sources said it would be too premature to talk about it as much would depend on the strength of both parties. "We mayalso seek assistance from various multilateral lending agencies like World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to set up the proposed company," they said.
The corporation is also in the process of evaluating an eligible partner for its proposed renovation and modernisation company, which is considered to be a major step by NTPC after getting functional and financial autonomy.
Talking about NTPC's future plans as the ninth largest power utility in the world, sources said that it would propose to make investments in setting up LNG terminals through a joint venture, apart from making investments in coal and mining.
NTPC would also like to enter into a joint venture with the generation companies or even with Coal India Ltd (CIL) to form a mine development company of its own, they said, adding that this proposal was at a nascent stage.
The corporation is also drafting its 15-year corporate plan under which NTPC aims at generating internal resources to finance the equity for capacity addition of 14,000 mwby the year 2007, besides tapping domestic and international markets.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
