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| Audit report unveils murk over Baghliar Hydroelectric Project | | Contractors given undue favours | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Apr 1: Audit of Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation (JKPDC) has raised serious doubts over reliance of respective state government's especially those led by National Conference (NC) on National Hydroelectric Project Corporation (NHPC) despite its acknowledged incapacity to complete hydroelectric projects within scheduled time and budget.
The audit has held JKPDC, which entrusted J&K's controversial 450 megawatt Baghliar Hydroelectric Project (BHEP) to NHPC, responsible for poor contract management and granting undue favours to contractors engaged for completing the project. Report says that taken up for execution in 1999 on turnkey basis in state sector at an estimated cost of Rs. 3495 crore, Baghliar was to be completed by year 2004.
Civil and Hydro mechanical works were awarded in April 1999 to Jaiprakash Associates Limited for Rs. 1622 crore while the electro-mechanical works were allotted to Voith Siemens and VA for Rs. 492 crore. Both were supposed to complete the work by December 31, 2004. However, the report refers to repeated cost revisions alongside change in target date of completion.
Project underwent three cost revisions in August 2004, April 2008 and October 2009 with final cost estimated at Rs. 5827 crore. JKSPDC took over all the three units from the contractors between October 2008 and March 2009. After trial run, commercial operation was started in April 2009 i.e. 4 years and 3 months after the target date of completion.
Ironically, report points out that Baghliar is yet to be completed since ancillary works related to the project continue to be executed as of May 2010 and a total expenditure of Rs. 5515 crore had been incurred on the project by May 2010. CAG has concluded that project witnessed a cost overrun of Rs. 2020 crore against the estimated cost of Rs. 3495 crore alongwith a time over run of 5 years and 1 month.
Analyzing reasons for time and cost overrun, CAG has stated that despite prioritizing the project, JKSPDC failed to mobilize funding for the project in a planned manner and hence, obtained financial closure belatedly in January 2005. The company callously started the work by deploying plan assistance received from the state and by the time, financial closure was obtained, Rs. 2366 crore had been expended on the project.
Besides, JKSPDC paid Rs. 757.30 crore as interest against Rs. 637.60 crore provided in the DPR during the construction period of Baghliar. Besides, no records of contracts were available at the corporate headquarters. Delay in civil works resulted in five extensions in time in electro-mechanical contractors and payment of Rs. 106.86 crore on account of cost escalation, report maintains.
It asserts that this also led to continued supervision by consultants due to which additional expenditure of Rs. 69.23 crore was incurred beyond Rs. 60.77 crore payable to consultants as per schedule. Further, report has also held JKSPDC responsible for being unable to get allied works of Baghliar hydroelectric project completed. Company has accused the contractors of grating undue favours to contractors.
Obliquely raising finger of suspicion over handling of operation and maintenance of Baghliar to NHPC, report has referred to training of six officers of JKSPDC in Germany. It has said that JKPDC had never planned for operation and maintenance of Baghliar since it preferred not to impart training for handling the project to the staff.
Report says that electro-mechanical contractors as per the agreement was to provide necessary training in handling of electro-mechanical equipments to the company staff and during 2004-05, six officers had been sent to Germany by contractor for training. However, two of these officers were repatriated to their parent departments while the services of two others were not utilized since two of them belonged to mechanical and civil disciplines and hence, could not be deployed on power house duties
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