The Arunachal Pradesh government has scrapped 44 memorandums of agreements signed with private power developers more than a decade ago for failing to start working on them, the 60-member State Assembly was told on Wednesday.
Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein, who holds the Hydropower portfolio, said the terminated projects have been offered to the central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) considering their performance and reliability.
Beginning 2007, the Arunachal Pradesh government had inked 153 deals with various CPSUs and independent power producers for hydropower projects with a combined capacity of 46,943 MW. The deals were based on the hydropower policies of the Centre and the State government.
“After allotment, progress in many projects could not be achieved due to various reasons and the private developers were not inclined to execute them despite several notices served on them. This led to the termination of 44 projects,” Mr. Mein said.
He said the government had handed over some of the terminated projects to the CPSUs. These include the 120 MW Nafra and 90 MW New Mellling projects to the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited, and the 420 MW Amulin, 500 MW Eminni and 400 MW Mihundon projects to the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd.
Of the remaining projects agreed upon, four with a combined capacity of 1,139 MW had been commissioned and the State was getting 10-12% free power from them, the Assembly was told.
“The 2000 MW Lower Subansiri project (of NHPC) is in an advance stage of completion and two units totalling 500 MW are expected to be commissioned this year. The entire project will be commissioned in 2023, following which the State will get 240 MW of free power,” Mr. Mein said.
The Deputy Chief Minister also said the long-pending issue of land acquisition of the 2,880 MW Dibang multipurpose project had been resolved.
“Construction of this project is going to start soon. This has opened the gate for an investment of ₹30,000-crore that will result in a revenue generation of ₹600-crore annually and free power worth ₹60-crore for us annually,” he said.
