The Sirajganj project stumbled in January 2004 when the government arbitrarily cancelled a bid of Bangladeshi Summit power when it was at its final stage. Afterward, the Power Cell of the power ministry floated a tender once and cancelled it recently under pressure from the business lobby, which wants to bag the deal.

The business lobby had earlier succeeded in having removed the director general and technical director of the Power Cellwho were reputed to be highly qualified and experienced in successful implementations of private power projects.

The lobby has had placed an ex-official of a private power company, Westmont, as the new technical director, and has had him spearhead the Sirajganj bid entirely.

Now under a directive of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the Power Cell has proposed changes of six criteria to pre-select competent power companies. Five of them aim at relaxing quality issues. This proposal will be sent to the power ministry for approval.

After the approval, the Power Cell will float the second re-tender for the project. Sources indicated that the bid criteria relaxation coupled with undue influence will help secure business for the brother of an influential minister who represents a Chinese company and an Irish-US company in Bangladesh.

The previous criteria sought the qualified bidder to have construction, operation and maintenance experience of at least one combined cycle plant of 300 megawatts. But the new criteria allows a bidder to show two plants of two sites totalling one 300 mw plant.

The previous criteria sought the bidder to have at least $200 million in debt financing in the last 10 years. This has been lowered to $150 million.

To measure the financial strength of the bidder's consortium, the previous criteria allowed for the combining of the experience of raising debt and equity of members having at least 20 percent of the equity share. This has been lowered to 10 percent in the new criteria.

For determining the power plant development and operation, the previous criteria did not allow combining the experience of the members within the bidder's consortium. The Power Cell demanded that at least one of the members having at least 20 percent of the equity share fulfill the requirement of each of the technical criteria. The new criteria lowered it to 10 percent.

The previous criteria demanded a litigation history of the bidder, which has now been dropped. A sixth issue that was not there in the previous criteria seeks the bidder, in case the applicant is a number of separate companies acting as a consortium, to submit different types of agreements.

The power cell at a meeting on October 20 argued that these issues should be relaxed to encourage “wider participation”.

But industry insiders say competent bidders have stopped participating in recent power bids because of wholesale allegations of bid tampering, manipulation and favouring companies which have a strong footing in the ruling BNP. "Relaxing the bid criteria will bring in incompetent companies only," observed a source.

The BNP government has so far implemented one 80 mw simple cycle power project in Tongi, built by the Chinese company Harbin. Since it started test operations early this year, more than a year behind schedule, the plant keeps on tripping due to technical glitches.

Some PMO officials are also hammering a secretive third phase 450 mw Meghnaghat power project with an Irish American joint venture, Cadogan-Manning, on an unsolicited negotiation basis. This company is also represented by the brother of the senior BNP minister who had previously bagged Tk 3,000 crore worth of a Chinese supplier's credit deals in the energy sectorwhich are now stumbling in every aspect.

The brother of the minister had the Power Cell DG fired in March and the technical director transferred through the PMO amid opposition from the state minister for power. These changes were made as these officials declined to violate rules and regulations to award the Meghnaghat 3 project to Cadogan-Manning.