Power Grid Wins Jam Khambhaliya Transmission Project: Rs 822.91 Crore a Year

Power Grid Corporation has won the right to build one of Gujarat’s biggest renewable evacuation schemes, and the machine work it creates will be handed out later, in packages, to contractors. If you own or hire earthmoving and lifting plant in Saurashtra, that second step is the one to track.

What was awarded, and at what stage

This one moved in two steps. The specialist transmission trade press reported on 19 August that Power Grid had emerged as the lowest bidder on the scheme. The letter of intent followed on 21 August, which is the stage that actually settles who builds it. Power Peak Digest carried the award detail, and mainstream business desks including CNBC TV18 ran the Rs 822.91 crore annual tariff the same evening. Seven bidders had qualified, among them Adani Energy Solutions, Tata Power, Resonia, Dilip Buildcon, PNC Infratech and Dineshchandra R. Agrawal Infracon.

One correction worth making, because it is circulating. An annual transmission charge is not a project cost. Rs 822.91 crore is what the users of this system pay every year once it runs, not what the concrete and steel will cost. No capital outlay has been disclosed, and we are not going to invent one. Separately, an aggregator headline pairing Power Grid with a Rs 26,000 crore contract and a Rs 2.2 lakh crore order book does not survive a check: no first-rank desk carries that award, and the Rs 2.2 lakh crore figure attaches to a borrowing-limit approval, not to an order book.

What it means for buyers

Power Grid does not turn up on site with its own fleet. It wins the concession, then tenders the civil and erection work as engineering, procurement and construction packages. That is exactly the pattern behind our earlier coverage of Bajel Projects taking roughly Rs 700 crore of Power Grid line packages. So the buying signal here is a lead indicator with a long fuse, and the packages are where fleet decisions get made.

Read the scope as two unrelated jobs, because that is what it is. The Kalyanpur substation is a single graded platform: sustained bulk earthwork, cut-and-fill, a motor grader and soil compactors working a defined area for months, then a long concrete phase for transformer plinths, firewalls, cable trenches and the control building. The two 765 kV double-circuit lines are the opposite. They are hundreds of scattered tower foundations along a corridor, which means small-to-mid excavators, piling or rock-breaking depending on strata, and crawler cranes for erection and stringing. Route lengths are not stated in the element schedule, so the tower count, and therefore the real line-side machine demand, is still unknown.

Our take: the platform is likely bigger than the visible electrical scope suggests. The request for proposal lists a 6,000 MW plus-minus 800 kV HVDC terminal station and two 400 MVAr STATCOMs under future provision, meaning space is to be created for them now even though they are not being built now. Earthwork and land preparation for kit that arrives later is a quiet but real quantum of hours, and it is the sort of thing that gets under-scoped at bid stage. Set the annual charge against the Rs 126.54 crore a year Ashoka Buildcon took for a 400 kV air-insulated substation at Sakoli, and the scale gap is roughly six and a half times, which tells you this is a different order of civil job.

Geography matters too. Kalyanpur sits in coastal Devbhumi Dwarka, with the line corridors running through Jamnagar and towards Rajkot. Saline ground, a shallow water table near the coast and cyclone exposure push foundation design and dewatering into the cost sheet, and they favour contractors who already hold local plant over anyone mobilising from outside the state. With commissioning set for March 2030, expect the EPC tenders through FY28 rather than this year.

FAQ

Does Power Grid winning this project mean it will buy construction equipment?

No. Power Grid is the transmission service provider, not the civil contractor. It awards engineering, procurement and construction packages, and those contractors buy or hire the plant. Watch the package tenders, not the concession award.

What does Rs 822.91 crore actually refer to?

It is the annual transmission charge discovered in the competitive bid, paid yearly by the users of the system once it is in service. It is not the construction cost, and no capital cost has been made public.

When would site work realistically start?

The scheduled commercial operation date for the Kalyanpur substation is 31 March 2030. On a scheme of this size that points to EPC awards and mobilisation through FY28, not immediately.

Related on DesiMachines: Bajel Projects Transmission Order: Rs 700 Crore of POWERGRID Lines

Source: Power Peak Digest

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