Hoping that the Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Power Limited (RPL) will be able to complete the controversial Sasan ultra mega power projects by 2012, power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde formally transferred the 4,000-mw plant from Sasan Power Limited, the special purpose vehicle floated by Power Finance Corporation (PFC), to RPL on Tuesday.
“This is the second time that a letter of intent is being awarded in Sasan UMPP… I do not want to go into details about the Lanco-Globleq consortium whose bid was disqualified by the empowered group of ministers. I am sure that Anil Ambani will complete the project during the 11th Plan,” Shinde told reporters.
Anil Ambani, after receiving the transfer documents from PFC, said, “This is a big challenge of creating the biggest power project involving an investment of more than Rs 20,000 crore.”
The Sasan project is the first in a series of nine such 4,000-mw power plants proposed to be set up in the country during the 11th and 12th Plans.
Another project at Mundra in Gujarat has already been transfered to Tata Power.
After the completion of Sasan, seven states, including Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand, would be benefited.
The Sasan power project will initially supply 1,500 mw to MP, 400 mw to Rajasthan, 600 mw to Punjab, 500 mw to UP, 450 mw each to Delhi and Haryana and 100 mw to Uttarakhand.
The project got delayed by nearly seven months as the Lanco-Globeleq consortium, which initially won the bid in December last year, was disqualified for violation of norms. The project was later awarded to Reliance Power, a subsidiary of Reliance Energy Ltd, after it matched Lanco’s lowest tariff bid of Rs 1.19 per unit.