Arunachal to sign MoU on Revival of Coop Bank

New Delhi, May 02: The Arunachal Pradesh Government is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for a Special Revival Package of Rs 50 crore for its apex Co-operative Bank, according to Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu.

Mr Khandu told UNI that the bank had become financially sick having incurred losses to the tune of more than Rs 200 crore.

He regretted that a major chunk of this amount had been given to ''persons of influence'' sidetracking the laid-down norms of loan sanctioning.

Responding to a question, Mr Khandu said this situation was the accumulated result of ''mismanagment'' during the past four to five years.

Once the Rs 50 crore SRP was made available to the State Government it would be in a position to re-start the Coop Bank's functioning ''in a limited way towards its final revival''.

Mr Khandu further stated that the State Government had submitted a proposal to the Centre through the Power Ministry seeking a sum of Rs 500-800 crore as advance payment of the State government's share of 12 per cent power from the Prime Minister's announced package of 50,000 Mega Watts (MW) of Hydel power projects.

''The Centre has agreed, in principle, to our proposal'', said the chief minister.

He said the State Government had, meanwhile, also entered into agreements with a number of Central Public Sector undertakings and regional undertakings the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), Northeastern Power Company Limited (NEPCO) for the setting up of 15,000 MW-worth of Hydel Power Plants in the State.

Apart from this, the State Government had initiated a number of steps for creation of an additional 200 MW of Hydel power by seting up a number of mini and micro hydel power plants ranging between 5 and 20 MW over a period of 2 to 3 years, Mr Khandu added.

Once these projects were through ''there is no reason why the state can not become the 'Power House of the World,'' Mr Khandu.

UNI