CESC’s subsidiary wins Chandigarh’s power business auction

The Chandigarh Electricity Distribution contract was awarded to Eminent Power for INR 871 crore, outbidding six other bidders.  

A subsidiary of CESC Kolkata named Eminent Power emerged as the highest bidder for Chandigarh Electricity Distribution bidding, bagging the contract for INR 871 crore. There are over 3 lakh residents of the UT that are consumers, many of which are domestic consumers.

In November last year, the distribution utility began the privatization process.  However, the Punjab and Haryana high courts had blocked the UT’s privatization process.

At a hearing on December 1, the high court ruled that the utility could not be sold in its entirety to private companies, citing potential illegality. 

After the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday stayed those orders, the Union Territory has opened price bidding for privatization of its distribution business.

Eminent Power won this contract for the power distribution business of the UT beating out six other firms. These firms included Torrent Power that quoted INR 606 crore, NTPC that offered INR 563 crore and Torrent Power that offered INR 551.5 crore.

While the bid by Adani Power was INR 471 crore and that by Tata Power was INR 426 crore. The lowest quote came from Sterlite Power at INR 201 crore.

Following the central government’s announcement to privatize discoms in Union Territories as part of its Atmanirbhar Bharat plan in May, Chandigarh is the first Union Territory to make its power distribution company available for sale through a public tender process.

Many other union territories have begun implementing plans for the privatization of their power distribution utilities.

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