Itanagar: In a significant move, the Arunachal Pradesh Cabinet has given it ‘go ahead’ signal to hand over some important ‘stalled’ hydropower projects that were originally awarded to the independent power producers (IPPs), to the central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) for their development.
This decision was taken in the first Cabinet meeting of the year held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pema Khandu at the State Civil Secretariat here on Tuesday.
“Today, the Cabinet deliberated and finalised an action plan for unlocking this rich (hydropower) potential. The Cabinet decided that some important stalled projects currently with IPPs will now be handed over to CPSUs for development,” a statement from the Cabinet Affairs department said.
It said Cabinet decided to hand over 5 already terminated projects to the CPSUs namely, Naying (1000 MW) and Hirong (500 MW) to NEEPCO, and Emini (500 MW), Amulin (420 MW) and Minundon (400 MW) to SJVNL for development.
These projects will see an investment of Rs 40,000 crore in the next 5-7 years and would generate green power of 2,880 MW and provide revenue of around Rs 500 crore per year in free power and around Rs 100 crore for local area development, the statement said.
“The Cabinet approved the indicative procedure for transferring the stalled hydropower projects from the IPPs to CPSUs in order to unlock the potential. An Action Plan has been prepared to commence the work on 13 priority projects with generating capacity of 12,343 MW. This would lead to an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh crore and would provide revenue of Rs 2000 crore to the state as free power and around Rs 350 crore per year for local area development,” it said.
The Cabinet also approved that revenue generated by the State Government through the free power will be invested in Government Bonds/Green Bonds which would be used for the development of the State.
Further, the Cabinet approved the inclusion of one male and one female member in the Local Area Development Committee set up under the Deputy Commissioner for the management of the Local Area Development Fund.
