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| ‘Stay in touch’, CM tells Norwegian Co. | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 16: After almost a decade of facing political onslaught and judicial wrangles, a favourite of National Conference, the Norwegian Consortium is all set to get back the contract of prestigious 1200 MW Sawalakote Power Project. An official and more formal word from the government is though yet to come, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has asked the Consortium to ‘stay in touch with the Commissioner Power Development Department’
Popularly known as Sawlakote Consortium, the group of companies hovering around the Sawalakote project on river Chenab since October 2000 is comprised of M/s Sawlakote Prosjektutviklingas of Norway, M/s Hindustan Constructions Company Mumbai and M/s Ozaltin Construction Trade and Industry Company Inc of Ankara Turkey.
The National Conference government headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah had awarded the contract to Norwegian consortium at a quiet ceremony held in New Delhi in 2001. Earlier, the Company had made a presentation and put its case before Dr Abdullah and his key officers including then Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitley and then Principal Secretary Power Ajit Kumar. The Power Department was then personally looked after by the Chief Minister. Later in the same year Power department was allocated to Surjeet Singh Slathia who had to face barrage of questions in the budget session of 2002 for allotting tender to a Consortium without floating global tenders. The Government had defended its decision on the account that they executed contract at lowest possible rates.
In subsequent years, the coalition governments headed by first Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then by Ghulam Nabi Azad reviewed the decision of National Conference Government from time and time and was finally scrapped by decision of a Cabinet meeting on November, 15, 2006. The Consortium went to the Court and fought a prolonged battle. It was early this month that the Court reversed the government decision and raised serious questions on applicability of the mind of then decision makers.
After having won the case, the Consortium is now back in action looking forward to execution of project. Representatives of the Consortium called on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah here this morning and expressed their desire to restart the execution of the project.
The Consortium members gave a presentation of the project and discussed various issues involved in restarting of the project.
The Chief Minister advised the Consortium members to remain in touch with Commissioner PDD. The professionals and experts of Power Development Department will accordingly assess all the aspects of the project and shall make their recommendation appropriately for consideration by the Government.
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