Arunachal Pradesh signs pact with NEEPCO for two hydel power projects

Arunachal Pradesh government on Saturday signed an agreement with North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) Ltd. for two hydropower projects in Tawang and West Kameng districts.

This comes after the state government scrapped at least 40 such agreements signed with private companies for non-completion of the hydropower projects.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed by PS Lokhande, Commissioner (Hydro) and VK Singh, CMD NEEPCO at Itanagar for the development of the 90MW New Melling project in Tawang district and 120MW Nafra project in West Kameng district.

With Saturday's agreement, the total project allotted to NEEPCO reached six with total installed Capacity of 1325 MW. Out of the six projects, the NEEPCO has commissioned three projects: 600MW Kameng hydro electric project (HEP), 405MW Ranganadi HEP and 110 MW Pare HEP.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who attended the function requested CMD, NEEPCO to resolve the issue of Kurung HEP (330MW), for which the MoA was signed in 2015, but the work was yet to start.

"The CM desired that the hydro potential in the state should not be in paper only and it should be developed physically," said a statement issued by Khandu's office.

Further, he also informed that the NHPC is scheduled to commission 2 units of Subansiri HEP (2000MW) by August 2022 and full-fledged commissioning by August 2023, it said.

Agreements scrapped:

Arunachal Pradesh government had allotted hydro projects to several private developers and central public sector undertakings to harness the hilly state's hydropower potential.

"However, most of the private developers failed to implement the projects. So the state government started terminating the MoA for a dismal performance in executing the projects. So far 40 such projects have been scrapped," said the statement.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Secretary, Naresh Kumar, besides some other officials attended the programme.