Nine power plants, including that of Dabhol, GMR, GVK and Lanco, today emerged as successful bidders for 187.14 crore subsidy to get natural gas supplies of 9.93 mmscmd for running a total 5,070 MW capacity.
With secured gas supplies, the plants will generate a total 8.81 billion units, which would be supplied at or below Rs 4.70 per unit for a period of six months to March 2017, the Power Ministry said in a statement.
This will involve government support of Rs 187.14 crore from the Power System Development Fund (PSDF).
"Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Ltd commonly know as Dabhol project got quantity of the natural supplies as demanded by it. Besides, the plants of GMR, GVK and Lanco too emerged successful bidders," a source said.
The ministry said that the e-auction process successfully concluded today wherein nine plants emerged as preferred bidders and were allocated 9.93 MMSCMD e-bid RLNG.
The present reverse e-auction for the stranded gas-based plants is the fourth phase of auctions conducted under the Scheme for Utilisation of Stranded Gas Based Generation Capacity.
The grid connected gas based power generation capacity in the country is 24,150 MW. Of this, a capacity of 14,305 MW had no supply of domestic gas. These comprise 29 plants which were eligible to participate in the auction process held today.
14 plants with a cumulative installed capacity of 7,575 MW participated in the auction process for Phase IV.
The successful bidders include power plants in Southern region. The generation from these plants would improve the power availability in the Southern grid, mitigating to a large extent the shortage of availability and constraint of evacuating the power to the Southern region from other regions, it said.
"The MP government is aware of the contamination of
groundwater here since 1991. Yet, till today it has taken no legal steps to make Dow Chemical pay for the clean-up, or for the adverse health effects on residents living next to the abandoned factory," Sarangi said.
"In the last two years, Dow Chemical has ignored four judicial notices asking its representative to appear before the Bhopal district court. And now it is merging with another American multinational, DuPont, to further evade the civil, criminal and environmental liabilities of Bhopal," said Rashida Bi.
According to Namdeo, "the killer factory was set up and run in Bhopal with help from the US government, which is now sheltering both Dow Chemical and (defunct) Union Carbide by refusing to serve the Bhopal court's notices to Dow."
"This year, within one month, 1,27,000 people wrote to the US President's office asking that the Department of Justice serve the notice on Dow Chemical, and all we got in response was an apology for deliberate inaction," he claimed.
"Our Prime Minister paid special attention to the menu for the dinner to which he invited Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemicals CEO, in September 2015, during his visit to the US," said Nawab Khan of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha.
"But he remains oblivious to the need of revision of figures of injury and death in the curative petition for additional compensation to the survivors pending before the Supreme Court for six years," Khan alleged.
'Children Against Dow-Carbide' leader Safreen Khan also echoed similar concerns.
