e no'~

KPCLin fresh controversy over,Rs 2,184-crore"Bidadi projectTerms L&T bid unresponsive even after firm agrees to withdraw deviations

nalisation of the tender for the pointed out that the KPCL had deviations (technical and com- ing the aforementioned things.project," the KPCL board had decided not to consider AI- mercial) unconditionally. In a surprise move, thesaid in its 322nd meeting. A stom for the project and that On March 4, the Corpora- KPCL then termed the L&T's Icopy of the minutes is with Dee- it had moved on to other short- tion communicated with L&T, bid "unresponsive" and ru-can Herald. listed bidders. inviting them for a meeting to mours are rife about the inten-

In line with the recomrnen- Confirming' this to Deccan resolve the deviations. During tions of the corporation.dations of the said sub-commit- Herald, KPCL managing di- the meeting on March 5, L&T For, with the unconditionaltee, the corporation had con- . rector M R Kamble, said: was asked to withdraw the de- withdrawal of the deviations,tacted all the four shortIisted "Yes, we have termed Alstom's viations without any financial L&T, which was the L-2,bidders - Alstom, L&T, Tata bid unresponsive," and that implications to the KPCL should have automatically

The KPCL,which had select- Projects andBHEL-to resolve the Corporation was in talks Among the deviations men- qualified for price negotia-ed Alstom as the lowest bidder the aforementioned issues. with the other bidders. tioned by the KPCL were thsse tions, but the corporation's(Ll), had come under severe However, the board has not- Replying to an email, an AI- relating to auxiliary power con- board, going by the docu-criticism for not having fol- ed in its meeting that in re- storn spokesperson said the sumption and entry tax. L&T, ments, has authorised Kamblelowed the proper procedures. sponse to the opportunity pro- KPCL was yet to communicate 'KPeL sources said, had raised to have price negotiations withThe matter was even taken up vided to the company to with them about the status. a clarification as these two another bidder, which hasbefore the High Court by two mutually resolve the technical things were not mentioned in been selected as L-l.other shortlisted bidders. and commercial deviations, Fresh controversy the scheduled list of deviations Kamble, however, maintains

"As an outcome of the writ Alstom, vide a letter dated This done, the corporation has in the tender document and that no decision on whom topetitions filed by Larsen and February 12, 2013, has ex- got itself into a fresh contro- that it did not qualify as a devi- award the contract has beenToubro (L&n and Tata Proj- pressed its inability to with- versy by terming "unrespon- ation. made and that the KPCL wasects before the court, it was de- draw "such permitted, albeit sive" the bid of L&T, which However, the corporation evaluating the matter in a pref-cided to form a sub-committee unresolved, technical and was the second lowest bidder was not willing to concede and erential manner.to examine the relevant issues commercial deviations on the (L-2) when Alstom was still in eventually, sources said, L&T L&T officials were unavail-and make suitable recornrnen- terms requested." the race, despite the company agreed to unconditionally with- able for comment.

I :':tion:: the ex~e~~=~:!I!QII~1II0.11Ill1°IllW..,i:mg•• t.hllli'!llSIII'.sl!ll°nu.rp.cDllellls~a!lllg.rllleel!lill!nll!!gi!!lt!!!0I!llWl_·tlllhtlS~!IIralll:._a~ll~tlllh••e I :aw all the deviatiO~'IIl ••Nme••wlllslIIslllelllrv_ic.elllll __

Chethan Kumar

BANGALORE: The KarnatakaPower Corporation Limited(KPCL) continues to find it-self in the middle of a con-troversy over the proposedRs 2,184-crore 700-MWgas-based project in Bidadi.

S .hsidi . "l-o/J/O fCOIVOrrllt ---r7Mt.s

'.U .sidise OI: ~Q.r:get~GreenTowers': TelcosFIrmstell govt theyWill not be a,ble~tdachieve the 2'015 target for renewable e~~'rgy in cellula~towers';SHREYA JAI duce carbon emISSIOn by at'· . " .... J' .NEW DELHI least 8%;compared with the' " Eco-friendly Towers ust4,OOOof the 400,000tele- In a pilot done jointly ~ith

base year of'2011. Amembej- .- ,;'~,_ ,', ., :~' com towers 10 the country the ministry of new and re-

Telecom operators have of the Tower and Inf:rastruc- . ,run on hybrid power solu- newable energy in 2011 bytold the government ture Providers -Association , , •• : tion of diesal WIth solar BSNL, Airtel, Indus Towersthat they WIll not be who attended' the f meeting .'~ - back-up. facility the associ- and GTL, solar power sys-

able to achieve thetarget for said the, operators called the"j! "." anon said, terns were installed at 1002015on using renewable en- cost of' harnessing green' ,~_~,:.d Tel~com regulator Trai had towers of each operator. Butergy 10 cellular towers un- power "prohibitive" .. ,r, ·of,.' i said 10 a report last year (hat there hasn't been any majorless they are provided subs i- "This process will require 'J' '. _ t~lecom towers running on .progress apartfrom the pilotdy or viability fund 109. government incentives dur- j Solar. i, Fuel dlfsel spewed out nearly 10 programme. While the state-At . an . Inter-ministerial ingthegestationperioduntil': Sites ; Catalysts m~lOn tonne of carbon run BSNL has shrugged off

meetmgwlththetelecomd.e_ economies of scale are' q 146 i' 1,600 !!mISSlOns.Each of the four the directive as "com mer-partment, the operators said achieved that bring down the 'I Hybrid SOlutions,*, . lakh towers co,?-sumed an av- cially unviable", privateit.would cost about Rs 33,000 _industry's. capital expendi- . j 2,550' +r ~ . erage of 8,760Iitres of diesel playerssuchasVodafoneandcrore to comply WIth the di- ~.ture to shift to renewable en- 1 .... ". ~ ' every year, ass urn 109 that Bharti Infratel have tried torective to run 50% of towers "ergy,"said UmangDas direc-" Free Cooling units diesel generator sets power- do some significant work inI~ rural areas and 20% in ur- tor of the associati6n and 1,850 ed the towers -for at least this direction.banareasonhybndpowerby chief mentor of Vieim Net ?'" s- ' elghthour~aday. '''There is no business case2015. According to the tele- 'works.Dasaddedthataspe; t Thereafter, the regulator f6rustorunourtowersonre_co~ department, this combi- the industry's estimates th crore 0 renewable energy recommended thegreentele- newable energy or install so ...nation of r bl ' e camp ames gearing up for communi ti. enewa e energy governmentneedstoprovide mea IOns pro- lar panels," said RK Upad-and grid power wilf help re- subsidies worth Rs '2,000 f~~~:l~~~!~~~~~r.energy for gramme, which was accept- hayay, chairman and

ed by the government. managing director of BSNL-:::LJ II J 1111111111111111/ 11111111111111111111111"" I" III" 1111111111/ 11111111111111 /11111111111" 111111I1111111111111 (11111111111" 1111111111111111111111" I: I

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What India couldn't learn from Germanytry, it would became vibrant andeven mare relevant that manypeople thought was possible.

Taday,.Germany is the world'stap photovoltaic (PV) installer.By December 2012, Germanyhad an installed capacity of aver32.3 GW.af PV installation. Andalmost every energy specialist isconvinced that solar power willachieve grid parity before 2017.

But Scheer engineered thistransition by adapting a revolu-tianary strategy that few couldimagine. Much of it is best ex-plained in a 48-minute TV pro-gramme that can be viewed athttp://www.you tu be .cottv!watch?v=mLHBFyfvK8A. He in-traduced an ingenious policy toencourage rooftop solar.

Aware that common falkwould not take the trouble ofbath installing and maintainingsolar panels an their rooftops,Scheer introduced laws' thatwould allow an agent to put upthe solar panels an rooftops at

Polic,.Vwatch

In the last ten years of his life,solar power champion Her-mann Scheer, wha died an Oc-tober 14, 2010 at the age of 66,was to revolutionise the veryrole of non-conventional energyin the world. He was an electri-cal engineer, but espoused thecause of solar because he wasconvinced that the clout of theoil and gas industry was marebecause of politics, not econom-ics or even technology.

He was aware of the hundredsof billions of dollars of subsidythat the oil and gas industry hadbenefited from for several dec-ades. If even a fraction of thiscould be given to the solar indus-

~Sunny side of powerSolar power generation in million kWH ••

,. ....... 20000Source: BMU, EEX,.BSW·Solar 4(2012• Projection, as on 4/2012

....... ·······················M·00 "

~

!~~~~iHll02000 . 2.004', 2006 2008 .. 20U'

highly subsidised prices. Thehouse-owner got the benefit ofusing the solar power-producedfrom his roof tap free of cast. Ifthere was some power left, thehouseholder could sell the sur-plus power to the agent andthus make some maney himself.

The agent thus played threeroles: he was the installer; hemaintained and serviced thesolar panels; and, mast impor-

tant, he played the role of ag-gregator - collecting smallamounts of power from indi-vidual houses, 'smoothening'aut the incansistencies in en-ergy flow and then selling the'consolidated' power to the grid.

In turn, the agent gat volume-based commission, attractiveenough to cover his costs forinstallation and maintenanceand also leave him with reason-

able surpluses.The aggregatar thus became

the market-maker. In order tomake mare profits, he encour-aged his team to come up withinnovations that could generatemare and cheaper solar power.That is haw plastic reflectors tofocus weak sunlight on roof tapsbecame popular and cheap.

TIle unexpected result was that.in ten years, Germany had morepea pie warkingin the solar indus-try than in the automobile sector.

The ather (intended) conse-quence was that Germany gener-ated a huge demand far PVwhichaided mass production. PVpricestumbled from aver $5 per watt ofinstalled capacity ro just under $1.More innovation meant better con-version rates, hence juicier profits.

India has more sunlight thanGermany. It has more people,hence mare houses. So whyhave India's policymakers notpushed rooftop solar more ag-gressively?

rPari:!s;t~~to[v~t~dyPPPmodel to raise coal output

NEWDELHI:The Central Gov-ernment has canstituted apanel to farmulate a policy onpublic-private partnershipframework with state-awnedCoal I ndia Ltd. as one of thepartners to increase coal aut-put.

The development comesclose an the heels I'll' FinanceMinister P. Chidarnbararnstating in his budget speechthat there was a need to de-vise such a pal icy to reducethe country's increasing de-

pendence an imported coal."In pursuance of the an-

nouncement in the UriionBudget, 2013, regarding pub-lic private partnership (PPP)policy framework with CoalIndia (CIL) as one of the part-ners, a Cammittee ...is consti-tuted," a source in the coalministry said.

The nine-member commit-tee chaired by Coal SecretaryS.-K. Srivastava has represen-tatives from ministries, in-cluding Finance and Law and

Justice, the source added.'The panel, to be serviced by

Central Mine Planning & De-sign Institute Ltd (CMPDI),will "devise a PPP policyframewark...in order to in-crease production of coal,"the source said, adding, "Thecammittee shall give a reportwithin a month."

ClL missed its productiontarget last fiscal and producedonly 435.84 million tonnesagainst the revised target of447 million tonnes. - PTI

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Jakson Power signspact with BAReSpecial Carrespondent

. NEWDELHI:Jakson Power Sa-~ IIIlions, on Tuesday. an-: nounccd lhat it had signed a

tech nology transfer agree-

illleill with the Bhabha AtomicI\esearch Centre (BARC) far1l1'"1ufacluring arid selling

/two solar-powered water pu-rifiers. lIsing the latler's tech-Ilology.

In '1 statement here, theCOIllP'lIlY said, as per theterms of the agreement, itwould be gra 11 ted access to

technology for standalone so-lar PV driven battery-less ul-tna filtration units for waterpurification by BARC for sev-en years.

Make and sellJakson will use the tech-

nolagy to sell these productsin India and overseas mar-kets. The manufacturing ofthese products will take placeat the company's GreaterNaida plant, and is expectedto hit the markets within thenext three months.

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8 states opt forpower debt rejigDC CORRESPONDENTNEW DELHI, MARCH 19

Union power ministerJyotiraditya Scindia saidon Tuesday that eightstates are on board forfinancial restructuringpackage (FRP) ofn.50 lakhcrore.

"Eight states are onboard. Of the n.90 lakhcrore short term liabilitiesclose to around n.50 lakhcrore short term liabilitiesare on board. We are arewaiting for transitionalfinance mechanism greensignal from the ministry offinance. Once that is inplace then all systems willgo," said Mr Scindia afterlaunching the first inte-grated rating of state powerutilities.

According' to reportsTamil Nadu, AndhraPradesh, Uttar Pradesh,Haryana and Rajasthan areamong the states whichhave applied for FRP. Thegovernment, in Septemberlast year, approved restruc-turing of n.9 lakh crore(till March 2011) debt ofstate electricity boards.Under the scheme, 50 percent of the short-term out-standing liabilities wouldbe taken over by the stategovernments.

Balance 50 per cent loanswould be restructured byproviding moratorium onprinciple and best possibleterms for repayments.

The power ministry hasextended the last date forthe states to apply forrestructuring the loans oftheir respective electricityboards to March 31, 2013from December 31,2012.

On the ratings of powerdistribution utilities, MrScindia said that it will pro-vide a reality check on theperformance of the utilities

An attempt torevive the sectorII-Of the n90 lakh crore

short term liabilitiesclose to nso lakh croreare on board

II-As per reports AndhraPradesh, Tamil Nadu,Haryana, Uttar Pradeshand Rajasthan haveapplied for the financialrestructuring packaqe

II-The power ministry hasextended the last datefor the states to applyfor restructuring the .loans of their respectiveelectricity. boards toMarch 31

and, will increase theiraccountability. '

"These distribution com-.panies are in need of finan-cial assistance. Those com-panies who have good rat-ings may' get loans atcheaper rates," santlhe I

minister.He said that this annual

exercise would cover year- .on-year comparison .ofAT&C losses, regulatoryenvironment, payments ofsubsidy and cross subsidy,quality of accounts, auto-mated pass through of fuelcost and debt servicingamong others. All the fourcompanies which have got"A plus" rating are fromGujarat.

State-run Power FinanceCorp, which was coordinat-ing the programme,appointed ICRA and CAREto assign ratings. The pro-gramme covers all the 39state power discoms. It,however, does not coverstate energy departmentsand private discoms.

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Panel on GridDisciplineOn the CardsENS Economic Bureau

New Delhi: In a bid to en-sure stricter grid disciplineamong the States and pena-lise the ones overdrawingelectricity from the grid, thePower Ministry is planningto set up a national powercommittee. The proposal isat an advanced stage. .

"The Power Ministry isworking on it and CERC andCEA would also be part of theexercise. Not only penalty itwould also look at co-ordina-tion and the governmentwould constitute a NationalPower Committee," a PowerMinistry official said.

Power sector regulatorCentral Electricity Regula-tory Commission (CERC)and sectoral planning bodyCentral Electricity Authority(CEP.) will be.consulted whileconstituting this committee,the official added.

"The issue is that the pen-alty is very negligible. Thereis need for stringent penalty.It would be part of theamendment to the Electric-ity Act, 2003 mainly forgrid," the official said.

1111:-; comes in the wake ofthe country witnessing itsworst-ever power crisis lastyear which left a large part ofJ ndia powerless and crippledessential services for severalhours.

/)'agadish Shettar"" •d ';f Dt:( ( OJ'> -N IL..... -

TwoRTPSunits closedRAICHUR/KOPPAL/GULBAR-GA, DHNS: Units one and fourof the Raichur Thermal PowerStation (RTPS) stopped produc-tion on Tuesday, following tech-nical glitches, .

Repair works have been takenup in the two units. While unitone is expected to resume gen-eration on Tuesday night, unitfour will restart generation onWednesday, RTPS officials toldDeccan Herald.

With two of the seven units,of21O megawatt (MW) capacity,each, currently generating pow-er at the station going off steam,.there is a production deficit of420 MW at the plant. The otherfiveunits are together.producing900MW.

Poor quality of coal suppliedto IUPS, shortcircuit in the boil-er 'and other problems are re-sponsible for the dip in produc-tion. The RTPS has reserves of1.5 lakh metric tonnes of coal,sources said.

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Power Ministrylaunchesratings forcompanies \

INEW DELHI, OHNS: The Power !

Ministry on Tuesday unveiledratings programme for distribu-tion utilities which would enablethem to get loans at better in-terest rates based on their finan-cial, managerial and regulatoryperformances.

These agencies would be rat-ed on the basis of seven parame-ters, including financial status,meeting regulatory norms and Iothers, Power Minister Jyotira- I

ditya Scindia said while releasingratings for distribution compa-nies (discoms). State-run PowerFinance Corp, which was coordi-natingthe programme, appointedICRAand CAREto assign ratings.The programme covers all the 39state power discerns, It, however, . 'I'

does not cover state energy de-partments and private discoms.

8~S'cOM·invites Bids for the f2l1owing: .. (~ '.,_ r . .Bid Eri$1uiryNo:,&Date; E~(ElE)/ AEE(O)/ JE:2/2012-13/EQ-290,291,304,',305, 2nd Call Dr. ,18-01-2013, Particulars : Providinginfrastructure to unauthorized IP sets Regularised in Devanahalli(O&M-1, O&M-2 section) and Nandgudi (O&M-r, Sulibele &Bendiganahalli section) SUP-divisions of Yelahanka 'Division onRATE CONTRACT basis for a period ofsixmcnths from thedate award on total turnkey basis, Approxlmate.tender Cost :Rs. 30.00 l.akhs. Last date & time of re,ceip,~,QL.p!9,documenf04-04-2013, 16:00 Hrs. opening of Bid,' Document 06-04:,2013,11 :00 Hrs. ",'"The Bid documents cap be downloaded thfo~gh e-procurernentportal from the website http://eproc.karnataka~v.in.Aspiring.bidders need to register on e-procurment portal. Further bidderscan take assistance with procurement help deskatQ80~25501216and 080-25501227. Sdl-' '

Executive Enginee'r (Ele.),BESCO~" YNKO; ,f:3ANGALORE-106.

For Electricity relatedcomplaintscall:080·22873333

.--~

~ Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited~ (Wholly Owned State Government of Karnataka Undertaking)

, .TENDER NOTIFICATION (Through e-Preeurement] .

BESCOM invites tender for the following: •Enquiry No,:BCP-771/2012-13. Particulars: For Selection ofSystem Integrator for Customization/Development andDeployment of Finance and Accounting. Procurement andMaterials Management, Project Management EnterpriseResource Planning Software Modules and MIS for LegalSection Monitoring, Tender Monitoring along with Hardware,Servers and Hosting and solution shall also be accessiblethrough mobile application, Bid Documents available from:26-03-2013 to 25-04-2013 upto 16:00 Hrs. Last date forsubmission of Bids: 25-04-2013 upto 16:00 Hrs. Opening ofBid Documents: 27-04-2013 at 16:15 Hrs.Bidding Documents can be downloaded through the e-procurement portal from the website http://www.eproc.karnataka.gov.in. Aspiring bidders need toregister on e-procurernent portal. Further bidders can takeassistance with e-procurement help desk at 080-25501216 I080-25501227.

For Electricity relatedcomplaints call: 2287 3333

Sd/·, General Manager (Ele),Procurement.

.'