Arunachal to terminate 100 hydropower project

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITANAGAR: Strictly the Arunachal Pradesh Goverment has decided to terminate 100 more hydro electric projects allotted to various private developers, days after terminating 15 project with a total generating capacity of 1586.4 MW of power.

“We have taken a bold decision to terminate those hydropower projects where the performance is very poor. We have decided to hand such hydropower projects over to the PSUs as per mutual terms and conditions.

Till date we have cancelled 15 hydropower projects and 100 more hydro electric projects are in the process of termination,” Chief Minister Pema Khandu said in his Independence Day speech at Indira Gandhi Park on Wednesday.

It is to mention here that the Arunachal government had, in the last one decade or so, signed more than 150 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with various PSUs and private players to accomplish the Centre’s 50,000-MW hydropower initiative. The projects – large and small – allotted for development on ‘build, own, operate and transfer’ (BOOT) basis were facing delays in execution with some being stalled for almost a decade. The delay has also been prolonged due to regulatory changes from the Ministry of Environment & Forests, including the introduction of basin study, which mandates that the entire river should be studied as a whole before proceeding with a project.

The 15 terminated projects are Kameng-1 (1120 MW), Poma (12 MW), Sae Chu (15 MW), Sangoshi (12.50 MW), Yemsing (15 MW), Simen (21 MW), Tirap Stage-II (10 MW), Tagurshit Stage-II (27.50 MW), Pacha (10 MW), Lower Ngorgum (18 MW), Doimukh (80 MW), Paikangrong (2.40 MW), Gongri (144 MW), Upper Ngorgum (9 MW) and Jameri (90 MW). Khandu, however, said, “I am extremely happy to announce that this year two major hydroelectric power projects will be commissioned. One being the 600 MW Kameng HEP and the other 110 MW Pare HEP which will substantially overcome the power needs of the state.”