Arunachal to earn 7000 crore revenue from power: Khandu

Itanagar, Mar 16 (UNI) Arunachal Pradesh would earn around Rs 7000 crore annual revenue as royalty from power projects to be executed by various central public sector undertakings and private developers by 2016, Power Minister Dorjee Khandu informed the Assembly today.

Participating in the discussion on motion of thanks on the Governor's address, the minister informed the House that as per the Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) signed with power developers, the rate of royalty would vary between 12 to 18 per cent.

''According to the MoUs, if the developers commissioned the project well ahead of target, they would not pay royalty till the actual period of commissioning. However, if a particular project could not be completed in time then they will have to pay royalty in advance till production begins'', he said.

The minister reacting to the allegations of Opposition Leader Kameng Dolo of not following official norms while inviting tenders for execution of power projects in the state, informed that as per the Centre's power policy the state government had handed over various projects of 100 mw capacity to developers without signing MoU, while for those projects above 100 mw capacity tenders were floated in various national, regional and local dailies.

''The increase in annual plan allocation for the next fiscal was because of the Rs 55 crore deposited in the non-plan revenue account, which was provided by private power developers'' he said adding, the state government decided to hand over many projects to private parties keeping in view their works being executed in Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

He further informed that the state government had planed for a policy to encourage private players to invest in power sector with 12 per cent royalty on projects above 10 mw capacity and 8 per cent royalty on projects below 10 mw.

However, power has to be transmitted up to the high transmission feeding line at their own cost for the government to purchase, he added.

UNI