Sources say a Central team led by Central Electricity Authority officials today visited new sites for the proposed thermal plant near Abohar.

PSEB’s member generation G.S. Sra took the team around and showed them three sites for the proposed plant. While one of the sites is on the outskirts of Abohar, the other two sites are near Gidderbaha on the Gidderbaha-Malout road, it is learnt.

The site selection for the 1200-MW plant would be done and expression of interest (EoI) floated soon, claim Board officials. The PSEB, say sources, is keen to start work on the plant soon, as the Board is facing a power crunch.

After shortlisting 10 bidders for the 1800-MW Talwandi Sabo power plant, the Board is now holding its request for proposal (RFP) of bidders conference for the thermal plant, which has been slated for February 14 at Chandigarh. The short-listed bidders would participate in this conference.

Meanwhile, for the 1320-MW Rajpura thermal plant, the PSEB is holding the pre-bidders’ conference for “request for qualification” (RFQ) of tenders at Chandigarh on February 13 to select the qualified bidders.

A number of companies keen on setting up power plants in collaboration with PSEB on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis would participate in the pre-bid RFQ conference of tenders.

After these initial conferences, the final award of contract to a developer for setting up the thermal power projects would be done after a tariff-based competitive bidding process as per Government of India guidelines.

The PSEB is keen to set up three thermal power plants in the state at Talwandi Sabo, Rajpura and Abohar. While the Talwandi plant will come up at Banwala village in Mansa district, the Rajpura plant is to come up at Nalash near Rajpura, while the third one is proposed at Abohar.