Advisory Group meets to expedite ongoing generation projects: Wants sluggish BoP contractors to pay liquidated damages

In view of the fact that execution of most of the thermal power projects (TPP) in the country is being hampered due to lapses in BoP supplies, the Advisory Group of the power ministry has recommended the inclusion of liquidated damages clause in the contract for BoP packages so that the contractors who fail to deliver on time can be penalized adequately. 

 Further, the Chairman of the Group, the power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, asked the BHEL-NTPC equipment manufacturing JV to focus on augmenting its BoP manufacturing facility and try to get more BoP orders to help the Government handle the issue of BoP lapses.

 One of the Group member and Chairman of FICCI, Amit Mitra, even suggested that while placing orders for BoP equipments, an assessment of the orders already placed on the vendor vis-a-vis its manufacturing capacity should be made by the power project developers. 

 However, the Chairperson of the CEA, Gurdial Singh, ruled out that possibility saying that while bidding for a package, the vendors usually claim to expand their manufacturing capacity as per the orders received by them. So, there is nothing much that a TPP-developer can do in the pre-award stage.

 A total of 15 thermal power units, worth an cumulative capacity 3,963.20 MW, which were proposed for commissioning during the 11th Plan period, have been stalled due to the lapses in equipment supply. 

 These power plants include the Parichha extension project, Santaldih extension Phase-II, Pipavav combined cycle power plant, Bellary thermal power plant (TPP) Stage-II, Jallipa- Kapurdi TPP and Udupi TPP. 

BoP equipment consists of machinery such as coal handling plants (CHP) and ash handling plants (AHP). Out of the 528 such orders required to be fulfilled for 11th Plan projects, till recently, only 232 had been realized.