Singh: Open arms

New Delhi, Oct. 9: Tata Power, Reliance Energy, L&T, China Light & Power and Gammon are among the nine companies that bid today for the country’s first independent private power transmission lines in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The projects are estimated to cost around Rs 1,700 crore.

State-run Power Grid Corporation of India (PowerGrid), which had invited bids for the western region transmission line strengthening scheme last year, will select the developer by November. The projects are scheduled for completion by 2009.

“Tata Power, Reliance Energy, Larsen & Toubro, GMR group, China Light & Power and Gammon India and three Spanish companies, including Isolex Wat and Abengoa, are among the nine companies to submit their bids for these projects,” PowerGrid chairman and managing director R.P. Singh said.

He said 12 companies had participated in the pre-bid conference for these projects and nine of them submitted bids.

“We will first evaluate their bids on technical grounds and then the price bids will be opened. The projects will be awarded by November,” he said.

While one project is for building sub-stations and grid lines in southern Maharashtra at an estimated investment of Rs 1,100-1,200 crore, the other will come in Gujarat at a likely cost of around Rs 500-600 crore.

These projects will usher in the new phase of transmission lines being built fully by private players.

PowerGrid has formed joint ventures to build some grid lines. The only joint venture in transmission, operational at present, is between PowerGrid and Tata Power to evacuate power from the Tala hydroelectric project in Bhutan.

The two transmission projects are part of PowerGrid’s Rs 5,000-crore western grid scheme, which ran into dispute last year when the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Energy approached the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) seeking a licence to set up the lines on its own. In July 2005, CERC had turned down Reliance Energy’s petition and divided the entire scheme into four parts.

It had directed that PowerGrid execute Part A and D, involving the construction of the 765-kv and 400-kv high-voltage transmission lines, either alone or as a joint venture partner.

The other parts — B and C — were to be developed by 100 per cent equity participation of private firms, for which the regulator had asked PowerGrid to conduct competitive bidding.

PowerGrid had opted to go alone for Part A and D so as to finish them by 2008-09 and invited bids in November last year from private companies for the other two packages. The western grid scheme involves construction of 800 circuit km of 765 kv lines, 6,300 circuit km of 400 kv lines, augmentation of 17 existing sub-stations and setting up of four new sub-stations.