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The Supreme Court verdict terming coal block allocations between 1993 and 2010 illegal may put state-run power major NTPC's plans to acquire stranded generation plants in jeopardy.
Following an expression of interest for acquiring coal-based thermal power plants earlier in the year, NTPC is evaluating 34 acquisition opportunities totalling 55,000Mw. “We have plans to acquire about 8,000-9,000 Mw of capacity,” Chairman Arup Roy Chowdhury said.
Later responding to a query from Business Standard, he said the plan might be hit by the Supreme Court ruling. “There is no question of acquiring a plant which does not have a coal linkage. After this Supreme Court verdict, some of these 34 companies' coal linkages may get affected. Now we have to see what we can do,” he said.
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“We have set up a sub-committee which is evaluating all the 34 applications. This sub-committee will also look into the impact of the Supreme Court ruling,” he said, adding, “The Supreme Court will come out with a detailed ruling on September 1. Let's see what is in it.”
According to Roy Chowdhury, the ruling will not affect NTPC's mining operations. “We are yet to go through the Supreme Court order with a fine comb, but apparently it has not affected us," he said.
The court on Monday declared all 218 coal block allocations made from 1993 to 2010 by the Centre illegal and arbitrary. The apex court will decide on the fate of the mines on Monday.
In February, NTPC, which has a cash balance of around Rs 17,000 crore, had sought expressions of interest from state electricity boards, power generation companies and independent power producers for offering their coal-based thermal power projects for possible acquisition. The power major had received 34 proposals.
NTPC has an installed capacity of 42,454 Mw in 22 coal-based and 8 gas-based projects and plans to add 14,000 Mw by 2017. Besides, another 20,000 Mw of projects are under construction.
Meanwhile, NTPC is planning to add one more unit of 660 MW to the existing project at Katwa in West Bengal.
