Three firms have participated in the bid for supplying 7.5 lakh metric tons of imported coal worth around Rs 1000 crores, against the tenders floated by MP Genco.
“We have received three bids against our tender. It is yet to be finalized. We will be speeding up the process so that the requisite coal is received on time,” chief engineer (fuel management ) MP Genco, Rajeev Shrivastav told TOI.
Sources said that the use of imported coal is likely to make government owned thermal power stations ‘idle’ and also make energy costlier by around Re 1 per unit for already burdened consumers.
If the thermal power stations are able to run and Madhya Pradesh Power Management Company purchases energy from the state owned thermal plants, then consumers will have to face around Rs 1 per unit increase in tariff. Which the discoms will charge in the quarter when energy produced using imported coal is used, in term of fuel cost adjustments (FCA). Normally power tariff is decided at the beginning of the financial year by the regulator, but in case of increase or decrease in actual fuel costs in between the financial year discoms file FCA petition before the regulator which then allows or disallows as per merit. Since the use of imported coal will increase the cost of production of energy from state owned thermal power stations, it will burden consumers in terms of FCA.
And with the increase in per unit variable cost or cost required to produce per unit electricity in terms of fuel consumption will increase by this much, thermal power stations will be out of merit order dispatch (MoD), and as per norms, it will be difficult for MP Power Managment Company to procure power from them.
Madhya Pradesh Power Generating Company Limited, (MP Genco) had invited tenders for importing 7.5 lakh metric tonnes of coal. As per the estimates made in the tender documents, it will be worth around Rs 976 crores (without transportation costs) but this is likely to grow much more as at this rate the cost of per metric tonne of coal will come to around Rs 13000-14000 but in volatile international markets it is being traded at around 300 USD which is more than Rs 21000 per metric tonne.
