Sources in the union ministry of power, when contacted, said the recent decision to go in for rentendering for the gas plant expansion projects had raised eyebrows particularly since this would be the second round of tendering for the projects which would delay the projects by another six months. It may be mentioned that NTPC's gas plant expansion projects involve doubling the capacity of four of its plants--Anta, Auriya, Kawas and Gandhar--which presently have around 660 mw capacity each.

NTPC had gone in for tendering for phase II of these projects last year. However, at that time, the domestic engineering giant, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) hademerged as the sole bidder for the projects while none of the multinationals in the power sector had also put in bids.

This had forced the power major to go in for retendering for the expansion projects in February this year. However, this time, too, BHEL was the only company which submitted bids for all four expansion projects while the only other bidder, the Swiss-Swedish conglomerate ABB-CE put in bids for two of the four projects--the Gujarat-based Kawas and Gandhar projects. In both these projects, the multinational emerged as the lowest bidder while BHEL remained the sole bidder in case of Anta and Auriya.

What has raised eyebrows in NTPC as well as in the corridors of the power ministry is the fact that instead of awarding the projects to the two companies--Kawas and Gandhar to ABB-CE and Anta and Auriya to BHEL--a decision has been taken to go in for retendering yet again. According to reliable sources, the pretext on which the decision has been taken not to award the projects to these companiesis the fact that "they have taken deviations from standard specifications and parameters." Sources maintained that it was not uncommon for bidders to deviate from laid down specifications as "most of them try to sell their standard equipment for projects instead of getting new equipment." On its part, the PSU's tender evaluation committee carries out an evaluation of the commercial impact of the deviation and awards the tender accordingly.

"The moot question is what has prevented them from doing the same this time round as well?" wondered a senior ministry official. "Or are they hoping for a better response from multinationals to the project this time round?" quipped another. It is being speculated that NTPC shied away from awarding the projects to ABB-CE in the wake of the alleged kickbacks allegation levelled by the Congress against power minister Kumaramangalam for showing undue favour to the multinational in the Rs 1,400 crore 2,000 MW Talcher phase II project. The project was finally awarded to BHELrecently bringing an end to the controversy.

Most in the power ministry feel that successive rounds of retendering for the gas plant expansion projects is unlikely to elicit a better response from MNCs who for some strange reason have chosen to keep their hands off the gas plant expansion projects.

On the other hand, it is feared that going by the present trend of rising prices in the sector, the delay in execution of the projects may prove counter productive since it is likely to increase the cost of generation even more from the existing level of approximately Rs 2.5 crore per mw.

Not only that, it is being apprehended that delays such as these would have an adverse impact on the country's overall dismal power scenario. Power ministry officials revealed that in the past two years of the Ninth Plan, the power sector had achieved only 50 per cent of the target of power generation. As against a projected capital addition of10,000 MW, the achievemnet so far has been a relatively low 3,600 MW.