Arunachal Cabinet settles to gear up hydropower future of state

Itanagar: The Arunachal Pradesh Cabinet in its first meeting of the year has decided to harness the state’s hydropower future in a sustainable manner for the benefit of local communities, the state and the nation.

Arunachal, through its hydropower, will make a major contribution to India’s commitment to increase non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW.
Hydropower is a major source of renewable energy and, if harnessed, will benefit the entire region through provisions such as free electricity, local area development funds, employment, contracts and business opportunities, along with massive investment in infrastructure. The dimension will help in socio-economic development. Development of social sector like health and education.

The Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday deliberated and finalized an action plan to unlock this potential. The Cabinet decided that some key projects currently stalled by IPPs would now be handed over to Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) for development.
The Cabinet also decided to hand over the five already decommissioned projects of CPSUs, Naying (1000MW) and Hirong (500MW) to NEEPCO and Emini (500MW), Amulin (420MW) and Minundon (400MW) to SJVNL for development.
These projects will see an investment of Rs 40,000 crore over the next 5-7 years and generate 2880 MW of green power. The cabinet decided that it would also provide revenue of around Rs 500 crore annually in the form of free electricity and around Rs 100 crore for the development of local areas.

The Cabinet further approved the indicative mechanism for transfer of stalled hydropower projects from IPP to CPSU to unlock capacity.
An action plan has been prepared to start work on 13 priority projects with a capacity of 12343 MW. This will entail an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh crore and will provide Rs 2000 crore as free electricity to the state and around Rs 350 crore annually for local area development.
The Cabinet also approved inclusion of one male and one female member in the Local Area Development Committee constituted under the Deputy Commissioner to administer the Local Area Development Fund.

It also approved that the revenue generated by the state government through free electricity would be invested in government/green bonds that would be used for the development of the state.