‘Marked bias in favour of Reliance Power’
Granting of major concessions to the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Power Ltd (RPL) helped them gain a windfall of `29, 033 crores, the CAG report said.
CAG flayed the ministry of power (MOP) and the Power Finance Corporation Ltd (PFC) of showing a marked bias in favour of RPL even when they were not the lowest bidder for the Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) while also awarding them the Tilaiya UMPP which was given to them without inviting bids.
Listing out a series of favours shown to this company, the CAG in its report tabled in Parliament, pointed out that subsequent to the award of the 4000 MW Sasan UMPP, they were granted permission to use two coal blocks comprising Moher and Moher-Amlohri to meet their coal requirements of 16 million tonne per annum. Shockingly, RPL was allowed to utilise the surplus coal from these mines for their Chitrangi project in Madhya Pradesh.
“The permission to use surplus coal in other projects of the bidder after award of the contract vitiated the sanctity of the bidding process which would result in post-bid concessions to the developer having significant financial implication,” the report said. “The decision resulted in financial benefit of `29,033 crore with a net present value of `111,852 crore to the project developer(RPL),” the official auditor said. The CAG report emphasised that it was not clear how the MOP was prevailed upon in October 2006 to allot an additional block (Chhatrasal) of coal to Sasan UPCC by de-allocating it from the public sector NTPC. The report highlighted the contradictory stands taken by both RPL and the MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan because while RPL maintained in March 2008 there was no possibility of enhancing production beyond 12 million tons from these mines, Mr Chouhan wrote to the Prime Minister in November 2007, seeking diversion of surplus coal to Chitrangi. And yet, in a strange turn around, in August 2008, RPL claimed they would use the latest technology to achieve higher production from the aforementioned coal blocks. RPL in a press clarification highlighted that the EGoM had given them the green signal to divert surplus coal. “The decision of permitting use of surplus coal for power generation ahs been ratified by EGoM on two separate occasions (once in 2008 and again in 2012),” clarified RPL in a statement.
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