Two villages in Arunachal facing China to be illuminated

Itanagar, Oct 15 (UNI) Two remote villages in Arunachal Pradesh perched along the along the Indo-China will get electricity shortly, thanks to a special Prime Minsiter's package.

Geiling, the last Indian village in the frontier on the right bank and Singa, the remotest village on the left bank of Siang River in Upper Siang district, will be electrified within a month under a border village illumination scheme.

Geiling is accessible only after seven kms uphill walk from a nearest roadhead. One has to trek at least for four days to reach Singa. Geiling will get power from 50KW Silingri micro hydel project (MHP) while Singa MHP is of 30 KW capacities.

The hydropower department has completed all their work and trial had been conducted and within a month the transmission and distribution network will be ready, an official told UNI today.

Planning secretary P S Lokhande, accompanied by Pawan Kumar Sain, Deputy Commissioner of Upper Siang and V. Sonam, Deputy Director, planning visited many important projects in the remote locations of Upper Siang district last week to complete the unfinished task for lighting up two remotest villages of the state.

The team trekked 14 kms to Geiling despite inclement weather and extremely in adverse conditions. The host of officers and public leaders spent few hours together in Geiling which served as an excellent opportunity for all to understand the problems and appreciate the aspirations of the people leaving in border areas.

The team also inspected the 50KW Silingri micro-hydel and expressed their satisfaction about the progress.

The team later visited another remote village Norbuliang and spent some time with the villagers. They also visited school and medical sub-centre and discussed about implementation of border area development programme (BADP), sources informed.

Mr Lokhande as DC Lohit and Anjaw were playing crucial role along with the hydropower department in establishing a 10 KW micro hydel at Kaho, the last Indian village in Lohit Valley, which is now being looked as role model for Border Village Illumination Programme.

More such remote border villages are expected to get their own tiny hydels in near future under PM package, sources disclosed.

At Tuting the team inspected many projects like 250 KW Kopu MHP, 4.5 MW Angong MHP, construction of rural link road (RLR) from Ongong to Old Tuting, construction of Steel Suspension Bridge at Kodak, Foot Suspension bridge at Zido to Connect Singa.

At Yingkiyong, Mr Lokhande inaugurated the Jan-Suvidha centre and conducted a meeting with officers connected with the implementation of PM's package and briefed them about increasing the absorption capacity, maintaining the quality and adopting transparent way of functioning.

The Planning Secretary also visited the 6 MW hydro project at Kamba in West Siang district which also received funding under PM package. The machines for the project were put under trial and by October end the commercial production was expected to commence, sources added.

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