• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

BHEL bags Rihand, Ramagundam equipment contract

Balaji C. Mouli

NEW DELHI, May 28

THE National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) board has recently cleared a proposal to award the equipment contract for the 1,000-MW Rihand and the 500-MW Ramagundam projects to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) following BHEL's move to shave off a tok en Rs 15 crore from the project cost.

The board had a month ago deferred the proposal as it sought a further price reduction from BHEL. The projects, which were earlier awarded to the sole bidder, BHEL, were negotiated by NTPC and were brought to its board for approval.

Prior to the board considering the proposal, protracted negotiations in the past had brought down the BHEL's bid prices by 11-12 per cent. This was accomplished by removing civil works from the scope of the contract in both the projects besides BHEL's mo ve to undertake a five per cent reduction in the capital costs. The civil works component in both the projects will be separately accomplished by NTPC.

The completed cost is both the cases is expected to be in the range of Rs 4.6-4.7 crore per MW.