ITANAGAR, Jun 14: Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein who is also the state’s Minister in-charge of power and hydropower development today in a virtual meeting with the Chief Managing Director of North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) discussed the progress of the NEEPCO-Hydro Power Development Corporation of Arunachal Pradesh Limited (HPDCAPL) Joint Ventures for development of 3750 MW Siang Upper, 330 MW Kurung Dam and 90 MW New Meling Hydroelectric projects.
Although Arunachal Pradesh possesses more than one-third of the country’s total hydropower potential, 98% of it has remain untapped due to various reasons, Mein said while reiterating state government’s commitment to develop big as well as small hydroelectric projects to enhance the state’s revenue earnings and reducing Central dependency for budgetary finance. Hydropower can be the main revenue earning source of the state, the DCM asserted while informing that efforts are on to revamp the development of Dibang Multipurpose Project and Lower Demwe Project. “Previous governments in the state allotted 168 projects to the private power developers and PSUs aggregating to nearly 46,000 MW. However, due to failure of the power developers, the agreements had to be terminated and the state has started allocating such terminated projects to the CPSUs and two projects namely 120 MW Nafra and 90 MW New Meling HEPs have been decided to be allotted to NEEPCO,” he informed.   
Terming NEEPCO as a partner in realizing the state’s hydropower dream, the DCM urged NEEPCO CMD V K Singh to start working on Kameng Basin projects namely Nafra and New Meloing HEPs as early as possible and sort out the impediments in implementation of the 330 MW Kurung HEP by sitting across the table, the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) of which was signed in 2015. Adviser to Minister (Power) Balo Raja assured the CMD to look into the security aspect of NEEPCO officials and any kind of local issues in connection with implementation of the Kurung Project. The meeting also discussed the 1800 MW Kamala HEP in Kamle district which is being implemented by M/s Jindal Power Limited. Although the project commenced in 2012, since 2014 it has deteriorated and lapsed even after 12 years of signing of the MoU. 
Chairman-cum-Managing Director, HPDCAPL Toko Onuj was assigned the task to act as a nodal officer for liaising with M/s Jindal Power Ltd, M/s SJVN and NEEPCO for the Kamala, Kurung, New Meling and Etalin HEPs on matters relating to acquisition and merger, equity participation etc. 
MLA Kamle Tarin Dakpe, Adviser to GoAP Dr H K Paliwal, Commissioner (Power) Prashant Lokhande and CE Hydropower Development (Monitoring) R K Joshi were among others who participated in the virtual meeting. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
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