Five companies, including Reliance Power, Lanco Infratech, Jindal Steel and Power, NTPC and Sterlite Industries, out of the nine shortlisted bidders for the Tilaiya Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) have submitted their technical bids for the 4,000 Mw project.
The four companies, who have opted out of the race for the power project - requiring an investment of Rs 16,000-18,000 crore - include Tata Power, Citra Thermal Power, Essar Power and the engineering giant Larsen & Toubro.
“Five bids received for a multi-crore project like Tilaiya out of nine, is a good response keeping in view the current economic situation,” said a senior official from Power finance Corporation (PFC) which is responsible for implementing the UMPPs.
The financial bids for Tilaiya - indicating the tariffs for sale of electricity from the project - are also expected to open in a fortnight’s time.
Tilaiya would be the fourth ultra mega power project to come up in the country on a public-private-partnership basis through tariff-based competitive bidding. Reliance Power has bagged two of these UMPPs -- at Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, while Tata Power has bagged the Mundra UMPP in Gujarat.
The project is a part of the government's UMPP scheme under which it proposes to set up 13 UMPPs to increase India's power capacity by above 50,000 Mw by the end of 2017 in order to fast wrap up the power demand and supply gap in the country. India has envisaged a capacity addition of 1,00,000 Mw by 2012 and the achievement of this target requires the development of large power projects like UMPPs.