CVC to probe faulty tower

Team DNA l New Delhi

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has ordered a probe into the issue of defective tower cooling tower at RInfra’s Raghunathpur Thermal Power Project. The issue was discussed at the recently concluded conference of Transparancy International held in Delhi, where officials from CVC were present.
“We have ordered an enquiry into the issue, and we will make sure that if the company is at fault, we will implicate the culprit,” said a senior CVC official. “We should be able to come out with a report in two months,” the official added.
DNA investigation had found that the Anil Ambani-owned company used less steel in the construction of a natural draft cooling tower (NDCT) for one of the project’s two power generation units. This has made the structure unsafe and the tower (NDCT1) will have to be partially demolished and rebuilt.
The irregularity in construction of the cooling tower was detected after an RTPP engineer wrote to senior officials of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC). Work on the tower was halted in October 2010.
After pressure from the engineers’ association and representations from other groups, the DVC in February 2011 constituted a committee comprising members from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), TCE Consulting Engineers Limited (TCE) and itself to study the issue.
The report, submitted in July, concluded that the cooling tower was unsafe because the amount of steel used in it was less than that outlined in its design. The report also said deviations were to the tune of hundreds of percentages in some cases. Subsequently, the DVC directed RInfra to demolish the tower and rebuild it.
Till now the CVC has not taken any action. The report of Transparency International says that “So far no action has been taken against RInfra. The CVC has simply forwarded the case to CVO of DVC where it is pending”.
Several complaints were filed by the All India Power Engineer’s Federation (AIPEF) to the CVC regarding this matter. However, they had failed to respond.