Power Grid has expansion plan in NE

Guwahati, Apr 7 (UNI) The Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), one of the world's largest transmission utilities, is set to exploit the potential of the Northeastern region.

Addressing a press meet here today, PGCIL CMD R P Singh said the Corporation had leveraged the convergence between transmission and telecom and diversified into telecom business, utilising the country's wide transmission infrastructure, which provides a robust highway of telecommunication at an affordable cost.

'' Our transmission network in the region comprises of 4,183 circuit kms, 14 sub-stations with 1,185 MVA of transformation capacity. It maintains a system viability of more than 99.5 per cent, '' Mr Singh said.

He said in 2004-05, the PGCIL registered a profit of Rs 187 crore from the Northeast.

Informing that the PGCIL had entered into an MoU with Asom and Tripura to execute works under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Project in seven districts of Asom, Dr Singh said: '' We are supplying electricity to 6,091 villages of Asom, at a cost of Rs 402.9 crore, and 525 villages to Tripura. '' The Corporation, which started its telecom services in November 2004, had already laid around 92 kms of intracity fibre in Guwahati, Shillong, Bongaigaon, Agartala, Tezpur, Nagaon, Imphal and Kohima.

'' We invested Rs 10 crore in this region during 2005-06. Last year, we earmarked Rs 21 crore for NE, '' Dr Singh said.

He also informed that the Corporation will be expanding its telecom service to districts like Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Aizawl, Itanagar in near future.

UNI