After years of delays to Dulhasti, the company simply noted that the third 130MW unit had been synchronised and the plant was fully operational. The units started to be commissioned in February, but the project also suffered some fatalities in a construction adit as clean-up operations got underway.
The company has also filed its draft red herring prospectus with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for the IPO of shares in the company. The stock would be listed on both the national and Bombay exchanges.
Under the proposal, the company would sell a new issue of up to almost 1117.4M shares and more than 558M state-owned stock, though the plan includes reservation of 26.5M shares for eligible employees. Under the IPO plan the book building would see at least 60% of the net available stock being available to qualified institutional buyers. Book runners are Enam Financial Consultants Private Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Capital Co, and SBI Capital Markets.
With its hydro power mostly in north and north east India, the company has built nine projects and owns 51% of the Narmada JV with the state of Madhya Pradesh. Last year almost all its output was to state power companies under long-term power purchase contracts. NHPC is building a further 12 hydro projects that will add 5192MW capacity, is in a JV on a separate scheme and is seeking approvals for six additional schemes with total capacity of more than 5GW.
Funds from the IPO would be partly used to help finance hydro projects under construction - Subransiri Lower, Uri II, Chamera III, Parbati III, Nimoo-Bazgo and Chutak.
In two of the other projects under construction the company has signed M&E packages. For the 520MW Parbati III project in Himachal Pradesh, NHPC has signed an M&E contract with BHEL for Rs 402 Crore (US$93.8M). The plant on the Sainj river will have four units, a 43m high rockfill dam, underground power house and a headrace tunnel almost 7.9km long. The full project budget is Rs2304.56 Crore (US$538M) on a debt-to-equity split of 70:30, the latter provided from central government via budgetary support.
The company has also signed an M&E package with Alstom for the 240MW Uri II project in Jammu & Kashmir for almost Rs 408 Crore (US$95.1M). The full project budget is almost Rs1725 Crore (US$402.4M), again on a 70:30 basis. The scheme on the river Jhelum involves four units, a 52m high concrete gravity dam, underground power house plus headrace and tailrace tunnels nearly 4.3km and 3.8km long, respectively.
