The work on the construction of country's first ever state-of-the art technology-based 360 MW combined cycle power plant at Haripur in Narayanganj is going on in full swing. The officials of the project implementing agency Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB) expressed the hope that they would be able to start the plant's operation by July 2013 as per targeted date. Japanese donor agency JICA has financed the project as part of Japanese cooperation to the country's ailing power sector. JICA will provide a total of $ 491 million to implement the project along with some other schemes. Marubeni Corporation, Japan has been mobilising both its manpower and equipment keeping in mind the targeted timeframe. If the plant comes into operation within stipulated time, it would play a great role in easing the nagging load shedding in and around the Dhaka city, said an EGCB official. He said the Marubeni Corporation would supply gas turbine generator from world renowned Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and steam turbine generator from Fuji Electric while Korean Hyundai Corporation will work as subcontractor for Marubeni Corporation to set up the power plant. Industry insiders look up on it as one of the efficient power plants since Marubeni is internationally reputed and experienced Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) company. Industry insiders credited the government with completing the bid evaluation in a transparent manner. The EGCB has engaged four internationally reputed consultants for the project. The consultants are AECOM (New Zealand), SMEC (Australia), SNC-Lavalin (Canada) and Sargent and Lundy (USA). Two international firms-Sumitomo Corporation (Japan)-GS (Korea) Consortium and the Marubeni Corporation, Japan were qualified in the pre-qualification stage while other three bidders were disqualified. Then Bid was invited in two envelop systems. Sumitomo-GS Consortium's technical bid was evaluated as substantially non-responsive while Marubeni Corporation was evaluated as substantially responsive bidder. JICA strictly monitored the PQ and Bidding at every stage of the process and gave its concurrence. Finally, Marubeni Corporation won the bid. Marubeni Corporation signed a contract in February 9 this year with the EGCB to supply and install one of the biggest power generation units at Haripur, the largest power plant project signed in the public sector. The government for the first time has successfully awarded the contract to an EPC company within shortest possible time. Normally, any power plant project in Bangladesh faces unusual delay by repeatedly inviting and cancelling tender. This project did not have to face any delay in tender floating, bid submission or bid evaluation, according to the EGCB official.