Power ministry in no mood to place NTPC order with Bhel sans bidding

Anupama Airy

New Delhi, April 26 : THE ministry of power is not in favour of the proposal put forth by the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises that the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) be asked to place the first few orders for its new super critical thermal sets with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (Bhel) on a negotiated basis.

It is significant to note here that NTPC, for the first time, has decided to introduce higher rating thermal sets of 660 MW, with super critical boilers, for its forthcoming super thermal power projects. To begin with, NTPC plans to install three super critical thermal sets at its 1980 MW super thermal power project at Sipat.

Although, the power ministry is yet to send a formal communication to the heavy industry ministries in this regard, top ministry officials confirmed that this proposal will not be accepted.

The ministry of heavy industries had requested the ministry of power to ask NTPC to keep the first few orders for super critical thermal sets out of the competitive bidding route and award the contracts for the same to Bhel on a negotiated basis. Bhel has an ongoing arrangement with Siemens AG of Germany for the design and manufacture of large size super critical thermal sets. As per officials, even NTPC, in a recent communication to the power ministry, has refused to award any contract for super critical thermal sets on a negotiated basis and has preferred the competitive bidding route for any award of contract. “NTPC being a commercial entity, cannot award any more contracts on negotiated basis, as was being done earliar,” officials said.The logic given by the ministry of heavy industries for giving preference to Bhel for the first few sets, was to help the dometic equipment major assimilate the design, engineering and technology for manufacturing these higher rating sets indigenously in a phased manner.

Moreover, as per the ministry, this will also help in benchmarking the prices for the super thermal sets and will be in the overall interest of the country. u Even earlier, when a decision to install the higher rating sets of 500 MW capacity with sub critical parameters was taken by NTPC for the first time, a decision was taken by the power ministry that the first eight 500 MW sets should be taken out from competitive bidding and order for the same be placed on Bhel.

This, according to the heavy industries ministry, helped Bhel in acquiring the technology from Siemens for manufacturing these sets indigenously and in benchmarking the prices. Subsequent to this, Bhel participated in the international competitive bidding for bagging all such orders.

Bhel has an ongoing technical collaboration agreement with Siemens AG, Germany, for steam turbine thermal sets and with Babcock Borsig, Germany, for the boilers.