5 Arunachal power projects to be handed over to two CPSUs

Itanagar:  The Arunachal Pradesh government has decided to hand over five terminated hydropower projects with a generation capacity of 2820 MW to two Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs), officials said here on Wednesday.

An official of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said that these five projects would require an investment of Rs 40,000 crore in next 5-7 years.

Of the five projects, two hydropower projects — Naying (1,000 MW) and Hirong (500 MW) — would be handed over to the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO); and Emini (500MW), Amulin (420MW) and Minundon (400MW) to the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited for development.

The state cabinet in its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday approved the indicative procedure for transferring the stalled hydropower projects to CPSUs in order to unlock the potential.

These projects would provide revenue of around Rs 500 crore per year and around Rs1 00 crore for Local Area Development (LAD), the CMO official said.

“An action plan has been prepared to commence work on 13 priority projects with 12,343 MW generation capacities. This would lead to an investment of Rs1.5 lakh crore and would provide revenue of Rs 2,000 crore to the state and around Rs 350 crore per year for LAD,” an official statement said.

It said that Arunachal Pradesh, through its hydropower, would contribute majorly towards India’s commitment of increasing non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatt.

Hydropower is a major source of renewable energy and if harnessed would bring in all round socio economic development of the area through massive investment in infrastructure as well as provisions such as free power, local area development fund, employment, contracts and business opportunities, social sector development such as health and education, the statement stated.

The cabinet in its meeting also approved that revenue generated by the state government from the power sector be invested in the government bonds which would be used for the development of Arunachal Pradesh.

–IANS