National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has decided to award a Rs 1,900 crore contract to the Russian firm Technopromexport (TPE), which emerged as the lowest bidder beating BHEL and Korean firm Doosan for the 1,980 MW power plant at Barh in Bihar."The board of directors approved the contract for TPE last month after it was found to be the lowest evaluated techno-commercially bidder," an NTPC spokesperson said, adding the said project (3x660 mw) was identified as a mega power project.On the reported controversy over awarding the project to TPE, which had failed to meet the pre-qualification criteria, the spokesperson said: "An NTPC team visited their plant and verified the data they had given."It has been observed that TPE has executed a number of orders for power plants, including power plants with super critical technology, and has the requisite capacity and capability to execute the said contract."TPE had earlier bid for NTPC's super critical power project at Sipat-1, but was not found to be the lowest bidder and hence was not considered for the deal last year.The spokesperson also pointed out that TPE, which is owned by the Russian government, has successfully executed 160 thermal power plants in 35 countries with a total installed capacity of over 69,800 MW."BHEL's bid in the present case was the highest," he added.
