NTPC will soon approach the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court ruling that allowed Ansaldo Caldaie Boilers to bid for providing super-critical power equipment to the state-run power giant.

“We have sent this matter to the Solicitor General. We have received their comment (on this issue) and we would soon be approaching the Supreme Court,” the NTPC Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Arup Roy Choudhurym has said.

Before the matter went to the Delhi High Court, NTPC had rejected the bid from Ansaldo Caldaie Boilers (ACB), a subsidiary of Gammon India. The company rejected ACB’s bid saying that it did not fulfil the minimum criteria stipulated in the techno-commercial tender.

The company’s tender had invited manufacturers to supply a package that includes 11 super-critical boilers and an equal number of super-critical turbines of 660-MW each.

Besides ACB, there are four bidders for the tender, namely BHEL, a consortium of L&T Power and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and a joint venture between BGR and Hitachi Power Europe GmbH.

Chennai-based ACB India is a joint venture between Ansaldo Caldaie, an Italian boiler manufacturer and Gammon India, which holds a 73.4 per cent stake.

Since the matter related to the tender is stuck in legal tangle, sectoral experts believe that it would delay the power generation capacity addition programme of NTPC.

The power major aims to increase its power generation capacity to 50,000 MW by the end of the 11th Plan (2007-12) from the current production capacity of over 33,000 MW.

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