The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) has finally dropped its plans for the construction of four hydel projects in the Cauvery river valley after its repeated efforts over the last 10 years to secure endorsement from the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments went in vain.
Shelving its plans, the NHPC closed its office in Bangalore a month ago as several rounds of discussions involving the two states to sort out the differences failed, NHPC Chairman and Managing Director S K Garg told Deccan Herald. 
The NHPC, a government of India undertaking, had proposed to construct four hydel projects in Cauvery valley way back in 1990 and, as a follow-up, had also prepared a draft memorandum of understanding in 1998 for signature by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala governments.
Initially, all the states agreed to the projects. However, the project proposals soon got entangled with the Cauvery dispute. The states suggested that the decision on the project could wait until the resolution of the river dispute. Subsequently at the behest of the Union power ministry the states agreed not to link the projects to the water dispute but only to go back on it immediately thereafter.
The NHPC is major player in the development of hydel projects in the country, mostly in northern India and it had proposed to take up the Cauvery project as an initiative to enter the southern region, according to Garg.  The 1,150-MW Cauvery Hydro Power Project had envisaged two plants in Karnataka at Shivanasamudra (270 MW) and Mekedatu (400MW) and two in Tamil Nadu at Hogenakal (120 MW) and Rasimanal (360 MW).
To begin with, the NHPC had proposed to take up the Shivanasamudra and Hogenakal projects and the tariff was fixed was at Rs 1.25 per unit. Even though the project proposals are shelved for now, Garg, however, said that “if the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu revert to us, the NHPC will reconsider the decision”.