Gujarat announces ‘Wind Energy Policy’

In order to promote electricity generation from non-conventional sources, the Gujarat government has announced a'Wind Energy Policy-2007'. The new policy, to be effective from 20 June 2007, will be implemented over a period of five years. Also, to encourage private companies to set up wind energy plants, the State government announced exemption of electricity duty, if private entrepreneurs build captive wind energy plants for use within their own companies/manufacturing units. The State government also announced its intention to buy wind energy from private companies at Rs.3.37 per unit instead of Rs.2.6 per unit, as announced in 2006.

Finance Minister seeks merchant airport policy overview

The Finance Ministry has asked the Civil Aviation Ministry to look into the issues pertaining to the upcoming merchant airports' policy. The issues include:

The Finance Ministry has also sought opinion of the civil aviation ministry on synchronising the existing airport infrastructure policy of 1997 with the proposed policy on merchant airports. Consequent to the Ministry's suggestion, an interministerial group (headed by civil aviation secretary Ashok Chawla, and comprising officials from finance, law, commerce, civil aviation and defene ministries, and the Planning Commission) has been set up to study these issues to identify the broad contours of the policy.

The government will also take into consideration locational advantage and commercial viability of projects, while selecting private players.

Gujarat plans solar power policy

The Gujarat government is working on a separate solar energy policy that would encourage solar cities and solar offices. The government is also likely to provide greater incentives to attract large players. However, the proposed policy might face issues pertaining to pricing, capacity generation and grid connectivity.

Technical bids for infrastructure projects may be dropped

The Centre has decided to evaluate private sector companies bidding for infrastructure development projects only on financial bids, instead of the present system of grading based on both technical and financial bids.

At present, a public-private-partnership (PPP) technical bid is first opened. The criteria of submitting a technical bid in the pre-qualification or request for qualification (RfQs) stage has already been removed.

The new norms will reflect in the request for proposal (RfP) document, which is currently being drafted. With the removal of the technical criteria, the government hopes to award projects in less than a year, compared to the present system where projects take as much as two years. The move is part of revamping the bidding process, where the government is likely to come out with a standardised system of bidding and is finalising a two-stage bidding process where the PPP route will be used.

Along with the RFQ document, bidders will be given a copy of the model concession agreement and the manual of standards for the project. This will ensure that applicants know about a contract and the technical norms to be followed.