Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) has written to project executing agency National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for the second time seeking clarification on whether Bhel can manage the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC).

"We are not fully satisfied with NTPC's reply and we have sent a second letter seeking clarification on Bhel's ability and manageability to take up the plant package contract for the 1,000 mw thermal power project in Andhra Pradesh," OECF chief representative in India Hiroshi Oita told PTI.

OECF is providing about Rs 1,500 crore as loan to the project which costs about Rs 3,600 crore.

"We are not satisfied over the technical feasibility and manageability of Bhel to take up such a project as the company had bid for the project independentlywithout any foreign partner," he said.

Oita said for the earlier projects like Faridabad, Bhel had jointly bid with a foreign partner. "We want to know whether Bhel's proposal to take up the project was based on a realistic basis or not," he said. "We also want to know whether Bhel was treated preferably for the project compared to other bidders and in that case we would recommend the executing agency (NTPC) to call for a re-bidding," Oita said.

Bhel and Japanese company Mitsui were shortlisted for the plant package contract of the Simhadri project. NTPC selected Bhel and forwarded the name of OECF for approving the contract to the state-owned company.

In the first letter seeking clarification from NTPC, OECF wanted to know whether the evaluation of bids was based on realistic calculation given by Bhel, Oita said.

Though NTPC has said that Bhel was capable of executing a project of this size, OECF is not fully satisfied with the reply, he said.

"If we are not satisfied with the response from NTPC,then we would seek a re-evaluation of the bids and adjust the bid price to make it realistic and the project economical," he said.

NTPC, which has targetted power generation of about 6500 mw during the Ninth Plan period till 2001-02 has taken credit for executing the first phase of Simhadri power project (500 mw) during this plan period.