GVK thermal plant journey: Congress failure is AAP’s gain
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ February 11,2024
In October 2020 , when the Capt Amarinder Singh led Congress govt was ruling the state, GVK owned Goindwal Sahib Thermal Power Project at Tarn Taran sahib, a 540 MW (2X270 MW) thermal power plant located near Goindwal Sahib village, District Tarn Taran had offered Punjab state power corporation limited (PSPCL) to take over its plant.
At that time the powercom CMD A Venu Prasad had confirmed the same and had said that “yes, GVK has also offered the powercom to take over its 2X270=540 MW power plant. He further said the plant officials said that they are not getting coal due to farmer’s agitation. It’s management is also showing lack of interest in running the power plant”
Even, Larsen and Toubro (L&T) owned Nabha Power Limited, a 2×660 MW supercritical thermal power plant at Rajpura in Patiala district had also offered Punjab state power corporation limited to take over its plant and demanded Rs 10,000 crore.
After receiving the proposals from GVK and L&T owned Nabha Power Limited, CMD had constituted five member team to analyse the proposal of acquisitions of L&T owned Nabha Power Limited (2X660 MW) and to examine the proposal of GVK Power Ltd. regarding takeover of 540 MW coal based TPP (Goindwal Sahib). Er Vardeep Singh Mander (chief engineer/ power purchase & regulation) was the chairman of the committee. CA Hardeep Singh Chowdhary, chief auditor , Er Jayinder Singh Grewal, (chief engineer/ commercial), Er Devinder Pal Garg (chief engineer O&M,GHTP, Lehra Mohabat), and Er Bhuvnesh Nauhria (superintending Engineer/TR-2) were the members of that committee.”
At that time Congress government failed to grab the opportunity to purchase the private thermal plants.
But, after the AAP formed it govt in Punjab, the powercom and state government again initiated the process to purchase GVK after its case was gone to NCLT. It may be mentioned that the Punjab cabinet gave the green flag to buy Goindwal Thermal on June 10, 2023. PSPCL had made a financial bid to buy the thermal only in June 2023 after the government approval as the company that runs this thermal had gone out of the ‘GVK Group’.
PSERC in its order observed that PSPCL’s bid of Rs. 1080 crores for a project assessed to have a ‘Fair Value in the range of Rs. 1785.93 crores to Rs. 1955.42 crores ’ and an ‘Average Liquidation Value of Rs.1347.97 crores is most economical option.
Now PSPCL will use better quality coal available at an economical cost from its own Pachwara Mine after approval of the coal ministry. The variable cost of generation is likely to be around Rs. 3.40 per unit as compared to an existing average of Rs. 3.98 per unit.
GVK thermal plant journey: Congress failure is AAP’s gain .With this take over it would avoid a potential liability/ burden of about Rs. 3000 crores.
Goindwal Sahib Thermal power plant is a 540 MW coal-fired plant, comprising two 270 MW generating units. The project was established by GVK and Unit I of the plant become operational on April 6,2016 and Unit –II was commissioned on April 16,2016. This project has a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with PSPCL for 25 years.
Goindwal Sahib is a beautiful town located in Punjab at a distance of 23 km from Tarn Taran Sahib.
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