He expressed hope that the price discovered in bidding for supply of boiler package to the 3X660 MW Barh Stage-I project should be agreed upon by both sides as a key benchmark for reaching a negotiated contract price for Barh-II.
Technopromexport, which outbid BHEL and South Korea's Doosan to bag the NTPC contract for supply of boiler package to the Barh-I project, did not show interest in bidding for the capacity expansion.
Significantly, NTPC had raised a controversy when it awarded the contract for the first boiler package to the Russian company, defying a directive from the then power secretary R.V. Shahi not to go ahead.
Shahi had asked the NTPC management to make bidding conditions more flexible in order to ensure wider competition for the contract.
BHEL had recently entered into supercritical power plant equipment manufacturing in view of the huge capacity addition envisaged in this area. Alstom and Siemens were its partners for sourcing technology.
Officials said the bid opening for another NTPC contract for the supply of turbine generator package to Barh-II is scheduled for Oct 16.
Source: The Bihar Times , 9th Oct,2007
