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Raghunathpur thermal unit may be delayed by 2 years
Vinod Kumar Gupta, 03-Oct-2011

Sunday October 2 2011

Kolkatta

Work on the cooling tower of unit 1 at Raghunathpur thermal project is at a standstill resulting in delay of 600 MW units by another 2 years.

During the construction of cooling tower of unit 1 it was found that lesser quantity of reinforcement steel had been used as compared to the design. The construction work on the cooling tower was stopped in October 2010. DVC constituted a committee to examine the structural deficiency between 32 to 35 lift of cooling tower of unit 1 at Raghunathpur thermal plant

The enquiry committee report obtained under RTI has concluded that while the portion between 32-35 lift did indeed have serious deficiencies in reinforcement and the portion between 29-32 lift is also defective. On the issue whether the entire shell or defective portion of structure should be demolished the report states “The details of procedures for demolition of affected zone without disturbing stability of the remaining structure is not available with the committee”

As per minutes of high level meeting held on July 30 received under RTI the concern of CEA was that the defective structure cannot be used and the intent of the construction agencies was clear that they want to save the expenditure in constructing a new tower and for that purpose they were proposing various alternatives. DVC explained the different measure deviations took place in the cooling tower construction with respect to technical specification it is agreed that cooling tower of unit 1 is not acceptable at its present state of construction due to lesser reinforcement provided in RCC shell with respect to approve drawings at certain elevations of the shell.

As per minutes of meeting “Ministry of Power (MOP) assured that necessary assistance if required will be arranged from MOP, CEA and NTPC to give full support to the project for achieving full load operation as per agreed schedule”.

A senior DVC official wondered when the EPC contract has been awarded to Reliance surely MOP, CEA, NTPC have no business to bailout the contractor in respect of wilful blunder / fraud in the construction of cooling tower.

It may be added that 2x600 MW Raghunathpur project was awarded to Reliance in 2007 on single tender basis as the power was required for Common Wealth games. After award of project to Reliance the coal specifications were changed to suit the contractor. The interest bearing advance was changed to interest free advance to help EPC contractor Reliance.