The government has extended the deadline for submission of bids for the Butwal Power Company up to 5 December. The bids should have come in by 20 November but did not. Three previous attempts to privatise the company have been bungled over one technicality or another-on 20 August the government rejected the only qualifying bid in the third round saying the price offered was lesser than what it had expected-in dollar terms. (See "BPC's privatisation saga," #57, and "BPC on the block again," #60) The government has not gone through such a major privatisation process since the Nepal Tea Development Corporation (NTDC) was handed over to the private sector last year. Even that handover has not been completed yet.