- (1.) THE petitioner, NTPC Limited, has filed this application seeking review of the order dated 30.7.2008 in Petition No. 29/2007 (hereinafter referred to as the said order) under which the fixed charges for the period 2004-09 in respect of Ramagundam Super THErmal Power Station Stage-I and Stage-II (hereinafter referred to as "the generating station") were revised after considering the impact of the additional capital expenditure incurred during 2004-05 and 2005-06. THE petitioner has sought review of the said order limited to the following two points: (i) Non-exclusion of depreciation from cumulative depreciation recovered till date related to de-capitalized assets of Rs. 162.3 lakh, reduced from additional expenditure of new works under CEA approved R&M scheme; and (ii) Disallowance the claim of the petitioner towards CEA approved R&M Scheme including RLA studies vide Para 31 of the said order.
(2.) The petitioner, in relation to the first point has submitted that the Commission in para 20 of the said order had taken out an amount of Rs. 162.38 lakh of decapitalised assets from the capital cost while approving additional capital expenditure of Rs. 1437.55 lakh towards new works under the R & M scheme approved by the CEA. It has been stated that the details of those assets were not included in the claim as actual de-capitalization had not been carried out in the books of accounts. In compliance with the directions of the Commission, the petitioner, vide affidavit dated 27.9.2007, had submitted the details of the assets proposed to be de-capitalized without corresponding depreciation amounts for these items, presuming that reduction of the decapitalized amount from the capital cost would be effected only after decapitalization in books of accounts. It has been prayed that depreciation amount of Rs. 146.15 lakh on account of the de-capitalized items be adjusted against the cumulative depreciation recovered and added to the balance depreciable value given in para 41 of the said order. As regards the second point, the petitioner has submitted that the Commission had not allowed capitalization of expenditure of Rs. 323.45 lakh on R & M scheme including expenditure on Residual Life Assessment (RLA) studies of the generating station on the ground that it would be capitalized only after R&M works were undertaken and completed on the basis of such studies benefiting the generating station. The petitioner has submitted that before R&M/Life Extension Program is taken up, it is mandatory that comprehensive RLA studies of all critical components are undertaken to assess the current condition of the critical parts and predict its safe and useful remaining life. The petitioner has already incurred an expenditure of Rs. 152.01 lakh on RLA studies in 2004-05 and 2005-06. Since some of the works identified under RLA studies for R&M have already been completed and others are in the process of execution, the expenditure needs to be capitalized and serviced in tariff in the respective year. The petitioner has submitted that an error has crept in the order on account of disallowance of the expenditure on R & M scheme which needs to be rectified in review.
(3.) THE petition was listed before us for admission. We heard the representative of the petitioner on the points raised in the application for review. After careful examination of the material on record and oral submissions of the petitioner, we propose to dispose of the review petition at the admission stage for the reasons recorded in the succeeding paragraphs. Non-exclusion of depreciation recovered till date from cumulative depreciation;