Despite spending Rs 60 cr in 5 yrs, CVPP yet to award projects

The Chenab Valley Power Projects (CVPP) is yet to award any of the three proposed projects for construction despite spending over Rs 60 crore on salaries and other office expenditures in the past five years.
The CVPP even cancelled the tenders last week, invited in 2011 for the construction of the 1000 MW Pakal Dul hydroelectric power project on Marusadar, a tributary of the Chenab in Kishtwar district.
A CVPP official said in the past five years, the company had spent over Rs 60 crore on office expenditures while there was no progress on execution of the power projects —- the main objective for which the CVPP was established on June 13, 2011.
A Mumbai-based Patel Engineering Limited (PEL) in consortium with Limak Holding of Turkey and state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited had emerged as the lowest bidder for the Pakal Dul in February 2015.
The Patel Engineering-led consortium had quoted the lowest price of Rs 8,904 crore in the bidding process in which four companies had participated.
However, sources said the Chenab Valley Power Projects had communicated to the PEL that its tender had been cancelled for “quoting prices in excess of Rs 400 crore”.
The request for proposal for the project was floated in 2011 and has taken nearly three years for the CVPP to close in on the top bidders for the Pakal Dul, he said.
Officials blamed the management of the CVPP for the delay in execution of the power projects.
“The construction cost has doubled in the past five years and they cannot expect the PEL to work on the rates of 2011,” he said.
The Pakal Dul was to be completed in 66 months, officials said. “It may take more time now,” he said.
The idea behind establishing the CVPP has been sabotaged and it has become a money-minting place, he alleged.
The Chenab Valley Power Projects was floated as a joint venture of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, J&K State Power Development Corporation and the Power Trading Corporation of India Limited for execution of three hydroelectric projects, Pakal Dul, Kiru and Kwar, with an aggregate capacity of 2220 MW at the Chenab basin in Kishtwar.
Of the total power generated from the projects, the state share will be 62 per cent.
Officials said the Chenab Valley Power Projects was mandated to execute the projects on build, own, operate and maintain basis.
The state government has exempted the Pakal Dul from work contract tax, entry tax and waived free power and water user charges for 10 years from the completion of the project.
Official said the Pakal Dul would help reduce the power shortage in the northern region and partly utilise storage provisions of the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan.
CVPP chairman Mohammad Yousuf Khan attributed the delay in execution of the power projects to the failure of the previous PDP-BJP government in appointing the director for the Chenab Valley Power Projects in the past one year.
“The file to appoint the director for the CVPP had gone to former Power Minister Nirmal Singh. He didn’t take any decision,” Khan said.
However, after the Governor’s rule was imposed in the state, the issue was taken up with Governor NN Vohra.
Khan said Vohra appointed the Power Secretary as the director of the CVPP. “Fresh tenders will be issued in the next three weeks. We expect the cost to come down by at least 10 per cent for the Pakal Dul from the new bidder,” he said.