Reliance Power Transmission's arms, North Karanpura Transmission Company and Talcher-II Transmission Company, have moved the apex power regulator seeking cumulative “relief” of over Rs 700 crore for going ahead with the execution of two key transmission projects.

Reliance Power Transmission, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure, has also sought the shifting of the zero dates and an extension of the overall commissioning schedule for these two transmission projects. The company had bagged these two projects through the competitive bidding route last year.

In June this year, the Reliance Power Transmission arms had served notices to the beneficiaries of these two projects citing “unforeseen delays” in clearances as among the key reasons for serving the notices. The company had bagged the two transmission projects in 2010 under a tariff-based competitive bidding process, having quoted the lowest levelised tariffs for implementing the links on a Build, Own, Operate and Maintain (BOOM) basis. The transmission licence was to be valid for a period of 25 years.

CERC petition

In its petition to the CERC moved earlier this month, Reliance Power Transmission's arm, North Karanpura Transmission Company, has sought “relief” of around Rs 475 crore from the originally approved costs for executing the transmission link. The petition, moved through law firm J Sagar Associates, has sought the regulator's intervention to help “salvage the project” by setting off the adverse effects of “time and cost over-runs” that, it claims, have rendered it “unviable". Unless the issues raised by it are addressed fast, the company has claimed the project is likely to suffer “a crippling blow”.

For the Talcher-II transmission system, the company has sought a relief of Rs 263 crore. The grounds for seeking “relief” include Article 11 (force majeure) and Article 12 (Change of law) of the transmission service agreement (TSA) signed for the two projects. In its notice, the company had pointed to “unforeseen” delays in issuance of approval under “Section 164” and other “critical clearances” needed for the registration of the transmission scheme under the Project Import Regulation, 1986 of the Indian Customs Act 1962.

In its petition before the CERC, the company has claimed that due to “inordinate delays in grant of authorisation under Section 164”, the commissioning schedule of the project has been “rendered unachievable”. Section 164 of the Electricity Act, 2003 pertains to the requisite permission for the placing of electric lines in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885.

The North Karanpura transmission project is a joint scheme for evacuating electricity from the eastern region projects to the northern and western regions, with Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra being the lead beneficiaries in the two regions. The Talcher-II augmentation scheme is aimed at providing back-up in case of outage of the Talcher-Kolar HVDC link. The lead beneficiary of the project is Tamil Nadu.

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