National Thermal Power Corporation has bagged the ISTD-FICCI Award for excellence in HR practices.
It is also going for 9.5 per cent stake sale.
The government is likely to come out with 10 per cent stake sale offer of Oil India in the second fortnight of this month, followed by NTPC's issue in the first 14 days of February, a Finance Ministry official said.
State-run utility NTPC plans to more than double its power generation capacity by 2017 from the current 30,000 MW, diversifying further into renewable and nuclear energy.
NTPC is fighting a case in the Bombay high court to get gas from RIL at a committed price of $2.34 per mmBtu.
The quantities and price of $4.2 per mmBtu for gas under the GSPAs signed for five years are as approved by the government.
The petroleum ministry on Wednesday pledged support to power firm NTPC in its legal battle to get natural gas from Mukesh Ambani-led RIL at a price committed in 2004 and said the public sector unit's interests will not be compromised.
Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty closed marginally lower on Friday as investors booked profit in FMCG, IT and healthcare stocks after the BSE Sensex and Nifty hit fresh lifetime highs in intra-day deals. The 30-share BSE Sensex dipped 7.65 points or 0.01 per cent to settle at 75,410.39. During the day, it rallied 218.46 points or 0.28 per cent to hit its all-time intra-day high of 75,636.50.
A day after facing massive erosion from their wealth, equity investors became richer by Rs 13.22 lakh crore on Wednesday with markets making a strong comeback. The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 2,303.19 points, or 3.20 per cent, to settle at 74,382.24. During the day, it rallied 2,455.77 points, or 3.40 per cent, to 74,534.82.
NTPC on Tuesday asked the two BSES utilities to make their payments and said in the event of failure to do so it would be forced to regulate supplies to the state discoms.
The government on Wednesday said the public offer for sale of shares in state-run power firms NTPC and NHPC will come as and when market conditions are appropriate.
Adani Ports, NTPC, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, HCL Technologies and Sun Pharma were among the other big gainers. However, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were amonh the major laggards.
The last batch of quarterly earnings, global trends and trading activity of foreign investors will guide the equity market movement in a holiday-shortened week ahead, analysts said. Volatility may continue amid investors' cautious approach in the election season. Markets will remain closed on Monday due to the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai.
The dispute relates to NTPC's Barh stage-I project, where the Russian company is supplying boilers for three units of 660 MW each. The work at the Rs 8,700-crore (Rs 87-billion) project has come to a standstill and is now running two years behind schedule, owing to the dispute between NTPC and TPE.
NTPC-BHEL Power Projects, the joint venture between state-run BHEL and NTPC for making power equipment among others, is likely to rope in a global technology provider and may offer a minority stake, an NTPC official said on Tuesday.
Will fetch government Rs 11,300 crore.
Others shortlisted by the Department of Disinvestment for the NTPC offer were Deutsche Bank, SBI Capital Markets and Kotak Mahindra Capital.
India's largest power company NTPC plans to invest a massive Rs 2,25,000 crore (Rs 2.25 trillion) in the next seven years in capacity expansion to become a 75,000-MW entity, company's chairman and managing director R S Sharma said on Tuesday.
The staff cost for NTPC, the country's biggest power producer, is likely to go up by about 16 per cent as the company plans to spend about Rs 2,800 crore in the current financial year on its employee benefits and renumeration. It had spent Rs 2,400 crore in 2009-10.
The country's largest power producer, NTPC, which will add another 20,000 MWs by 2017 and induct large sized units of 1000 MWs during the 12th Plan, has its initial public offering oversubscribed by 13.4 times in the stock exchange.
The interlocutory application filed on Tuesday made it clear that $4.20 per mmBtu price approved by the government for RIL's KG-D6 gas was without prejudice to the state-run firm's case seeking the fuel from the Mukesh Ambani-run company at $2.34 per mmBtu price committed in 2004.
The 11 units comprise two 660 MW units for the Damodar Valley Corporation and nine for the NTPC. The NTPC and DVC have already received the techno-economic clearance to buy Rs 21,000 crore worth of power equipment for their upcoming thermal power generation plants from the Central Electricity Authority. The equipment would be procured through the international competitive bidding route. The bidders should have a manufacturing base in India.
Public sector major NTPC's follow-on public offer (FPO) managed to scrape through today, but raised questions about the state of the primary markets and the government's disinvestment programme.
RIL is also fighting a case with Reliance Natural Resources Ltd in the Supreme Court on supply of 28 mmsmcd at the NTPC price to the Anil Ambani-owned company. Though Subramanium has said this case has no bearing on NTPC, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas' plea in the Supreme Court may have implications on price and utilisation of gas sales from RIL's D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin.
Of the 17.99 mmcmd gas allocated to the power sector, gas supply pacts of only 2.67 mmcmd allocated to NTPC remained to be signed. NTPC's opposition has also delayed the GSPA for a separate 2.7 mmcmd allocated to the Dabhol power plant and the same is now slated to be signed next week.
They said rampant infrastructure development without a plan is making the fragile Himalayan ecosystem even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change which acts as a force-multiplier.
RIL has complained the to power ministry about NTPC's reluctance to sign an agreement to buy gas from it and said that the power PSU stands to lose Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion)on buying imported LNG.
The government holds 89.5 per cent stake in NTPC and it plans to dilute five per cent stake constituting 41.22 crore (412.2 million) shares through its proposed FPO.
The letter comes days after the government made it clear that the empowered Group of Ministers approved price of $4.2 per mmBtu for RIL's KG basin gas.
In the face of oil minister's comment that Reliance Industries Ltd gas to NTPC could be given at a government-approved price, the state-owned power major on Saturday said it will continue to fight legally for the fuel's contracted price and seek power ministry's help.
State-run power firm NTPC overstated its profits by Rs 938 crore (R 9.38 billion) in 2007-08, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said in a report, but categorically stated that chances of Satyam like frauds in PSUs are very remote.
State-run NTPC has agreed to buy natural gas from Reliance Industries but is opposed to paying marketing margin to the private firm and wants to use the fuel at plants other than Kawas and Gandhar that were identified by the government.
In a bid to diversify its product portfolio, National Thermal Power Corporation plans to enter into new areas like power distribution and electricity supply besides consolidating its presence in hydel power sector.
The Union Cabinet has cleared an initial public offer of 10 per cent of its equity in National Thermal Power Corporation to raise Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion), power secretary R V Shahi said on Thursday.
From the Sensex basket, Power Grid, Asian Paints, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and JSW Steel were among the major gainers. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Wipro, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.
Around 90-100 people received burn injuries, and the condition of some of them was serious.
