NTPC has rescheduled the commissioning of the first 250-MW unit of the much-delayed 750 MW (3 X 250 MW) coal-based thermal power station in Bongaigaon in Assam to July 2012 in the early Twelfth Plan period (2012-17).

According to the original schedule, two units of the Rs 4,720-crore project were slated to be commissioned in the final year of the current Plan in 2011-12.

While the BTG contractor, BHEL, claims to have been ready to erect the plant and machinery on time, the project was hit by a delay in execution of civil work by the contractor, SPML Infra (formerly Subhash Projects and Marketing Ltd).

The project will use 3.7 million tonnes of coal annually from the Makum coal mines.

NTPC has already decided to off-load the “balance” civil work of Unit-II and Unit-III of 250 MW each to a new contractor. According to company sources, bids in this regard have been received against a tender floated in January and the new contractor is expected to be finalised by the end of this month.

SPML will, however, continue executing the civil work for the first unit.

Confirming the new commissioning schedule, BHEL sources said the power equipment vendor had already erected the boiler for the unit. However, the turbine could not be installed due to a delay in civil construction.

Conceived in 2007, the NTPC Bongaigaon plant is coming up on the premises of the defunct thermal power station of the Assam State Electricity Board at Kumguri village at Salakati in Kokrajhar district.

The project will use coal from the Makum coal mines in the Margherita of Assam and Eastern Coalfields spread over West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Coal available in the North-Eastern region has high sulphur content. Since sulphur has corrosive properties, direct use of the same for steam generation in boilers is impossible. Also, there are environmental implications of the same.

To overcome the problem, NTPC is using desulfurisation technology at Bongaigaon for the first time in the country.

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