Centre accords priority on hydro power development: Shinde

Itanagar, Sep 21 (UNI) The Centre will attract private investments in the power sector and develop hydro-projects on priority basis, Union Minister of Power Sushil Kumar Shinde said here today.

The Minister said memorandum of understandings (MoUs) have been signed between Arunachal Pradesh government and three power majors-- National Hydro Electric Power Corporation (NHPC), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and North East Electrical Power Corporation (NEEPCO) for developing seven hydro-power projects in the state with installed capacity of 15,000 MW.

He said a hydro-power development policy had been announced by the government in August 1998 incorporating various measures. A number of changes have taken place in the intervening period, including enactment of the Electricity Act, 2003, notification of the National Electricity policy in February 2005 and the National Tariff Policy in January 2006.

In order to facilitate the entry of the private companies in the hydro-power generation, the Centre had issued a guideline in July 2002 empowering the state governments to develop hydroelectric projects with a capacity of up to 100 MW, he informed.

He said all the projects are above 100 MW, as per existing guidelines, were required to be allocated to private developers on the basis of competitive bidding.

The main objective of competitive bidding had to be competitive tariff and these provisions have further been strengthened by the Tariff policy, which stipulated that power procurement in future by the distribution of licenses would be through 'tariff based competitive biding', he added.

In order to increase the share of hydro power, the Centre has planned to exploit the hydro-electric potential to provide electricity to all by 2012, he disclosed adding, hydro-electric generation capacity in the country has experienced a steady rise from 508 MW in 1947 to 33,193 MW, which indicated a growth of hydro power by about 65 times in a period of over five decades.

The growth of thermal power has been as much as 96 times during the same period.

Consequently, the share of hydro-power in the total installed capacity, which had risen up to 50.62 per cent in 1963, has experienced a decline and at present accounts for only about 27 per cent of the total capacity, he added.

The capacity addition in hydro-power sector during Seventh, Eighth and Ninth plan period was 3848 MW, 2428 MW and 4538 MW respectively. A hydro capacity of 6447 MW has already been added in the tenth plan so far excluding projects below 25 mw, he informed. ''We are confident of adding about 9,500 MW of capacity from Hydro-projects in the tenth plan, which could not only be the highest ever capacity addition from the hydro sector in any single plan period but would be more than the combined capacity addition achieved in any of the two five year plans,'' he claimed. Disclosing that 40 schemes with an aggregate installed capacity of 13475 MW were under execution in the country presently, he further informed that about 160 schemes with an aggregate installed capacity of 65,797mw were under various stages of survey and investigation.

Of these, he said, 72 schemes with installed capacity of 32,491 MW were low tariff hydro-electric schemes under the 50000 mw hydro electric initiative of the Centre and the balance 88 schemes with aggregate installed capacity of 33,306 mw were outside the 50,000 MW hydro electric initiative.

Referring to the vast hydro electric potential of Arunachal Pradesh, the Minister further stated that out of the 50,328 MW hydro- power potential as per Central Electricty Authority (CEA) study, only 416mw had been developed and another 2,600 mw was under development by NHPC and NEEPCO.

In water-rich Northeast, water can be utilised properly only if major investments were made in water infrastructure, he commented.

The development of the projects, for which MoUs were signed today, would go a long way in solving the power crisis of not only the NE region but also the whole country, he said adding that the benefits from these projects would usher in an era of progress and prosperity in Arunachal Pradesh and the state would emerge as the hydro-power house of the country.

The Minister also assured that all requisite clearances for taking up these projects would be facilitated by his Ministry and would ensure that these projects were cleared expeditiously.

UNI