Development

Return of power projects important part of PDP-BJP’s developmental agenda: Govt

Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday said the transfer of power projects from the Government of India was an important part of the developmental agenda of BJP-PDP coalition government and the state is actively pursuing the transfer of these projects.

In a written reply to the question of Hakim Mohammad Yaseen in the Legislative Assembly, the Minister of state for power said the government is actively pursuing the transfer of power projects.

“The transfer of power projects is an important part of the developmental agenda of the BJP-PDP coalition government. As mentioned by the finance minister in the budget speech for the year 2015, 2016, the government would actively pursue transfer of hydel projects from NHPC and that budget provided funds for meeting the operation and maintenance cost of such power projects to be transferred from NHPC,” He said in the reply.

The government said that on 16 March 2015 the deputy chief minister and the finance minister met the union power minister formally and impressed upon the Government of India the need for transfer of power projects of Dul Hasti and Uri from NHPC to state among other important issues of power sector.

Subsequently this had been raised by Deputy Chief Minister in various power ministers’ conferences. The state government is actively pursuing the transfer of power projects,” the government said.

The government has mentioned that the union power minister during his visit to the state had not refused to hand over any of the power projects.

“As per the minutes of meeting held on 10.10.2017 to review the power sector in Jammu and Kashmir under the chairmanship of the union power minister of state (I/C) for power and New renewable energy at SKICC Srinagar issued by the ministry of power, government of India vide F.No: 16/38/2015-IPDS (vol-11) dated 22.11.2017, there is no mention about the refusal of handover of power projects to the state,” it has said.

The government has also said that the damaged transformers are being regularly repaired and reinstalled at their respective sites. The delay in the transformer reinstallation after damage depends upon the extent of the damage to the transformer.

Over the current power scenario in the Kashmir valley, the government has stated that during winter months power demand increases due to excessive use of heating devices viz, Geysers, boilers, room heaters electric blankets etc. which is in turn overloads the transformers and allied equipment at various voltage levels thus forcing the department for unscheduled power cuts.
It is to mention here that despite having the potential of generating 30,000 MW of power, pertinently, from the the state purchase power worth billions of rupees from the NHPC.

As per the information provided by the NHPC, between 2001-2015, the NHPC has earned at least Rs 194 billion (Rs 19,431 Crores) from the sale of power generated by the hydel projects based in J&K.

Of this, J&K Government had paid Rs 41 billion (Rs 4,129 Crores) to NHPC to buy 19.7% of the power that was generated by the hydel projects situated in the State.

The NHPC is running seven hydroelectric power projects in the J&K which include Salal, Uri-I, Dulhasti, Sewa-II, Uri-II, Chutak and Nimmo Bazgo.

Official documents had revealed that NHPC has generated 1, 15,636 million units of power from these projects from 2001 to March 2016. The NHPC data reveals that Salal has generated sale able energy 2973.54 MU in 2014-2015 and earned a profit of Rs 302.31 crore by selling power to different utilities.

Uri-I has generated 2635.70 MU saleable energy, with a profit of Rs 417.87 crore in 2014-15. Dulhasti has generated saleable energy of 1850.94 MU in 2014-15 with a profit of Rs 1068.19 crore. Sewa-II has generated 479.60 saleable energy with a profit of Rs 221.26 crore. Uri-II has generated saleable energy of 1008.87 MU with a profit of Rs 467.52 crore. Chutak has generated 158.76 MU with a profit of Rs 132.41 crore and Nimmo Bazgo has generated saleable energy of 194.25 MU with a profit of Rs 175.45 crore respectively.

Seven hydel projects were handed over to the NHPC for funding, execution and operation over a period of 10 years under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the J&K Government and GoI.

(With inputs from KNS)

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