A letter to this effect was issued by the ministry on Tuesday saying that the conditions earlier provided in the bidding documents for equipment supply contract for these four power plants remain unchanged, official sources said.

The Cabinet on Tuesday decided to extend by two years the purchase preference scheme for state-owned equipment supplying companies bidding for PSU projects.

NTPC had put on hold the bids for its over Rs 8,000 crore gas based power plants in the wake of no clear decision on the purchase preference scheme by the government. While the power ministry had opposed the scheme, ministry of heavy industries had favoured extension.

The power utility had earlier invited bids for the four gas-based plants Anta, Auraiya, Kawas and Gandhar for which they had received quotations from Bhel and ABB, the officials said.

NTPC had to reject these bids on the grounds that there were lots of deviations that were present in the bid documents submitted by the bidders, company sources said.

With the purchase preference scheme being settled, now NTPC could look at the possibility of inviting bids for the four projects by end of this month itself, the sources said.

As per the plan the biddders would have to submit their bids by three months from the date of floatation of tenders and ntpc would take about eight weeks to evaluate the bidders, the sources said. The orders would be placed to the contracts in three to four weeks time, they added.

Meanwhile, Petronet LNG has said that they would be in a position to make the liquified natural gas (LNG), the feedstock for the power plants, available for anta and auraiya by July 2003, the sources said.

Although as per the indications given by Petronet LNG, LNG would be made available to the power plants by 2003, NTPC is hoping that the fuel would be made available on a sustained basis only from 2004, the sources said.

In the intervening period till LNG is made available, the plants would be operated on high speed diesel (HSD) or naptha, the sources said.

NTPC already has a 10 per cent stake in Petronet LNG and would be one of the major consumers of fuel for its upcoming gas-based power plants in Gujarat and Kerala, the sources said.