LAHORE: The Project Management Unit (PMU) of the National Transmission & Dispatch Company (NTDC) has expressed grave concern over drastic increase in the project cost for the upgrade of four 220kV grid stations and the recommendation for the award of projects to the ‘lowest bidders’ whose bid offer was already much higher than the actual cost mentioned in the PC-1.

Since funding for the entire project (except one grid station) is being provided by the World Bank under a soft loan, the quarters concerned in the federal government have asked the NTDC management to submit the revised PC-1 of the project for approval, ignoring concerns of the procurement committee and others, Dawn has learnt.

“I am surprised to see the efforts being made to award the project to bidders at Rs19.8 billion instead of the actual PC-1 cost of Rs5.6 billion,” an official source deplored on Thursday. “The PC-1 generally caters for all issues -- cost escalation due to inflation etc. But in this case, how it has jumped to four times more than the actual cost. It must be investigated in depth by a team of honest officers,” he demanded.

According to a document available with Dawn, the PC-1 for the conversion of existing 220kV substations at Bund Road, Kala Shah Kaku, Ravi and Nishatabad to GIS technology was approved by ECNEC on March 17, 2017. “The existing 220kV grid stations are main source of power supply to major load centres for the areas of Lahore and Faisalabad Electric Supply Companies (Lesco & Fesco). These stations had been constructed in the 1960-70s and have completed their useful life after satisfactory operation of more than 30 to 40 years,” reads a letter NTDC’s PMU chief engineer Nisar Akhtar wrote to the company’s GM (Power System Planning).

Owing to the ageing factor, the refurbishment / rehabilitation of the existing switchyards of these stations was planned through their conversion to the latest technology – Gas Insulated Substation -- in a bid to avert the operational issues. According to the letter, the approved PC-1 cost for these four substations’ rehabilitation was over Rs5.683 billion and the bid price offered was over Rs19.807 billion.

In another letter, the PMU expressed concern over the issue and said it was not taken on board during change of the scope / preparation of engineer’s estimate and later (without consulting) it was approached for the revision of PC-1 after more than four years from the date of approval of the PC-1.

“Therefore, you are required to submit detailed justification (related to cost revision). Please also arrange a meeting for an in-house detailed deliberation on the matter of drastic increase in the scope of work and cost,” the letter written to the GM concludes.

On the other hand, the planning commission has asked the NTDC to submit the revised PC-1 of the project for approval.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2021