BHEL gets Madwa power plant order

Raipur: Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has bagged an order worth Rs 300 crore to engineer all civil works in the proposed 1000 MW thermal power plant in Madwa near Korba.

The decision was taken hours before the model code of conducts for the ensuing state assembly elections came into effect on October 14. Besides water, coal handling plants, BHEL will take up all the civil works in the Madwa power project. The contract for the project was bagged by the company earlier.

Besides Madwa power plant, BHEL was awarded the contract for setting up 500 Mw Korba West in April this year. The company quoted Rs 1.96 crore per megawatt as construction cost of both the projects - the lowest-ever rate in the history of BHEL to construct any power project in the country.

China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Company (CMEC) had earlier outbid BHEL by quoting the lowest rate of Rs 3.61 crore a megawatt to bag the deal.

Following a dispute for failing to start the work, state-run Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB) disqualified the Chinese equipment supplier.

BHEL was later awarded the contract for both the projects.

Sources said that the proposal for giving contract of civil works to BHEL was pending before the CSEB. Since one more company was also in the fray, the board could not take the final decision.

The board members met and decided to hand over the work to BHEL on October 14 but the decision was not announced as the model code of conduct came into effect, the official said.

Meanwhile, the decision of CSEB to give the work to BHEL faced some criticism.

“Only those people are opposing the deal who wanted that the work shall be awarded to private company,” CSEB Chairman Rajib Ranjan said in response. BHEL had been awarded many projects in Chhattisgarh and hence, the board preferred to give BHEL the contract of civil works in the project which it was already engineering, he added.