Orissa UMPP bid submission date extended to Mar 31

Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has extended the bid submission date for the Orissa ultra mega power project by another two months to March 31, with environmental issues relating to the mining of allocated captive coal blocks still being unresolved. “Following an instruction from the ministry, we have deferred the bid submission date for the Bedabahal UMPP,” an official in PFC said.

This is the fourth extension in bidding date for the project, for which notice was issued by PFC, the nodal agency, in July.

The ministry of environment and forests has declined to provide approval for mining work in the Meenakshi B, part of which falls in the ‘no-go’ area. Pending resolution of the issue, PFC cannot go ahead with bidding for the project.

Expectations were raised of an early resolution to the mining issues when senior officials from the ministries of environment and forests and power met early last month in a bid to work out modalities to allow mining in the environmentally sensitive block.

The Meenakshi and the dipside of Meenakshi along with the Meenakshi B— which are estimated to have coal reserves 885 million tonne — have been allocated to the UMPP by the coal ministry. Meanwhile, bidding for Chhattisgarh UMPP also remains stalled for similar reasons.

The government has bid out four UMPPs so far. Of this, three—Sasan, Tilaiya and Krishnapatnam have been bagged by Reliance Power while the fourth one at Mundra has gone to Tata Power.

While Sasan and Tilaiya UMPPs are based on domestic coal, Krishnapatnam and Mundra projects are to be fired with imported coal.

Mundra UMPP is the only project expected to start power supply during the current plan by commissioning 1,600 mw capacity. Other projects would be ready for generation in the 12th Plan only.

Reliance Power had earlier promised to the the power ministry that it would commission at least one unit of the Sasan UMPP in the 11th plan. However, the project has got delayed and now the first unit is expected to be commissioned in January 2013 only.