Yamunanagar Thermal Plant
CAG exposes irregularities
Delay in completion leads to Rs 498-cr power purchase
Kiran Deep
Tribune News Service

Withdrawal of Gold Shield sought

Taking a serious note of violation in the completion of the project, the All-India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding the withdrawal of Gold Shield which was awarded to Yamunanagar Thermal Plant by the Union Power Ministry recently for its early commissioning. The federation has also sent a copy of the CAG report to the Prime Minister.

Yamunanagar, March 25
The Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) report has come down heavily on the Yamunanagar Thermal Plant on account of delayed commissioning. The report has also indicted it for causing consequential losses to the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL).

Even the HPGCL hasn’t been spared; the CAG report has found that it extended undue favour to Reliance by accepting it as a technically qualified EPC contractor for setting up the Deen Bandhu Chhotu Ram Thermal Power Plant (600 MW).

The report further reveals that the company changed the collaborator after work was awarded to it, when there was no provision in the bid document for that. This resulted in delayed completion of the thermal plant and losses to the state to the tune of several crores.

While the delay in commissioning of unit I was by more than one year, the commissioning of unit II was delayed by 361 days. This caused a generation loss of 4297.68 MU, leading to purchase of power at an extra cost of Rs 498.48 crore.

The CAG further revealed an excess payment of advance of Rs 2.57 crore due to inconsistency in terms of contract, loss of interest of Rs 4.66 crore on release of ad-hoc advance without any provision in the contract and non-recovery of liquidated damages of Rs 55.86 crore.

Providing details about the irregularities, the CAG report said the contract with REL provided that the units would be accepted for commercial operation on completion of continuous satisfactory trial operation for 14 days and the performance guarantee test. However, the prolonged trial runs resulted in excess consumption of fuel valuing Rs 104.86 crore. Since the test was not performed in 2008-09, the units were not taken over by HPGCL.

If this is not enough, the CAG report pointed out that the delay in commissioning of dry fly ash system resulted in loss of a potential revenue of Rs 17.82 crore. Due to an excessive consumption of inputs as compared to contractors guaranteed parameters, the company suffered loss of Rs 67.46 crore. There was also an extra consumption of fuel oil valuing Rs 47.99 crore with reference to HERC norms. Extra coal of worth Rs 45.22 crore was also consumed as compared to contractors guaranteed parameters, the CAG report further highlighted.