Most of the companies that have been awarded solar power projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission have submitted documents by the deadline – July 24, two officials connected with the Mission have confirmed.
Both Mr Anil Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, NTPC Vidyut Vypar Nigam Ltd (which is the body incharge of this part of the Mission), and Mr Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), told Business Line that NVVN is right now scrutinising the documents. The result of this exercise would be known in “a day or two”.
Just the fact that the companies have submitted documents does not mean that all the projects are through, noted Mr Kapoor.
That, precisely, appears to be the nub of the issue. Sources said that out of the 29 solar photovoltaic and 7 solar thermal, 27 and 6 respectively have submitted documents – but it is not clear what the documents are.
According to the tender conditions, the project awardees ought to have completed financial closure by July 9 and submitted documentary proof of that by July 24. Failure to do so would result in the cancellation of the licence and forfeiture of the bid bond.
However, it is learnt that most companies have only given an undertaking that their funding has been or would be tied up.
It is not clear as to whether this would suffice, especially since NVVN issued a clarification on July 20, saying that “there is no proposal in consideration for relaxing the conditions for financial closure.”
Under the Batch-I of the Mission, solar PV projects worth 150 MW and solar thermal projects worth 470 MW were awarded in a bidding process, in December last year.