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Private players seek favourable bidding norms for UMPPs

Private power producers have sought power minister Piyush Goyal's intervention to modify the bid documents for Odisha and Tamil Nadu ultra-mega projects to protect the interests of companies. The two projects, which entail an investment of INR 50,000 crore, are crucial for the government's capacity addition programme that aims to add 88,000 MW of new units by 2017.

Six out of the eight private players, including Tata Power, Reliance Power and Adani Power, which have qualified to participate in price bids for the two UMPPs have warned that they could drop out of the bidding if their concerns over tender documents are not addressed by the ministry.

In a letter to the power minister, the companies under the aegis of Association of Power Producers, have said that current DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) guidelines in the bidding documents would make it be difficult for companies to submit price bids.

Under the DBFOT model, developers will have to surrender the project to state utilities after the active life of the power plant. This, the power companies feel, will create problems in mobilising financing for the projects.

“It is therefore suggested that the document should be designed based on build-own-operate model instead of DBFOT model,” APP has said.

Source-On Request