Mired in legal tangle, the country’s largest power producer NTPC is unable to place equipment orders worth Rs 34,000 crore for four super-critical projects in the country.

Placement of these orders has been stranded since one of the participating bidders — Ansaldo Caldaie Boilers — approached the court after its bid was rejected by NTPC citing non-fulfilment of minimum criteria in the tender.

Sources said due to the dispute, NTPC has not been able to place orders worth about Rs 34,000 crore for four projects spread across Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

New projects

The orders were to be placed for two units each of Solapur and Mouda projects in Maharashtra and two units of Meja plant in Uttar Pradesh. Each of these projects has a capacity of 1,320 MW.

Another order was to be placed for three units of 1,980-MW Nabinagar plant in Bihar. All the four projects are slated for the 12th Five-Plan Period (2012-17).

According to sources, the issue was also discussed yesterday at a review meeting of the power sector held at the Planning Commission.

The orders were to be placed as per Cabinet direction in January 2011 and the delay is already hurting the capacity addition plans of NTPC, the sources noted.

Ansaldo Caldaie Boilers, a subsidiary of Gammon India, first approached the Delhi High Court and now the case is pending in the Supreme Court.

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

NTPC had invited a tender for supplying a package that includes 11 super-critical boilers and an equal number of super-critical turbines of 660 MW each.

At present, NTPC has an installed capacity of 36,014 MW. In the 12th Plan period, the company is expected to see a capacity addition of about 66,000 MW.

Apart from the four projects, the tender also involved placing orders for two units of Damodar Valley Corporation’s 1,320-MW Raghunathpur project in West Bengal.

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