Shillong, June 4: Cabinet has approved over Rs 590 crore as the completion cost of the Ganol Stage-l Small Hydro Project (22.5 MW) in Tura.
“Though the project is completed, MeECL submitted an additional amount of Rs 30 crore to clear all the dues of the different contractors that is pending. Therefore, the completion cost of the overall project has been finalized at Rs 590.88 crore”, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma told reporters after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
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Kynshi power project
The state government will sign a fresh Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Athena Projects Pvt Ltd for Kynshi stage-I with a capacity of 450 megawatt, it has also given a green signal to sanction Rs 14 crore for enhancing the production capacity of Riangdo Small Hydro Project to 6 megawatt besides implementation of two self-identified power projects, which will provide free power to the state at 12 percent.
Sangma said, “We have decided to go ahead with the Kynshi stage-I and will sign an MoA with Athena Projects Pvt Limited.”
“We will sign an MoA with them with the original project and start the work as Athena has done all ground work for this project which has been in a limbo for many years,” he said.
Sangma said Kynshi project was initially signed for 450 MW. After different studies were done by different agencies including water commission, they realised this project cannot go beyond 270 MW.
“Since the project was down from 450 MW to 270MW the cost factors came up and they (Athena) were hesitant to go ahead and the project never moved forward though Athena had already done a large amount of homework including talking to local people, doing different environmental clearances, doing different regulatory exercises that was necessary. “We called them few years back and asked them if they are interested to go ahead and if not then we will cancel the project.After deep discussion with them, they have come to a conclusion that this MoU can be amended to include the pump storage project (PSP) and some aspects of solar project and run of the river project then this project can be viable and then they asked us to accordingly amend the MoA. When we checked with the legal department, it was not possible to amend the MoA as the terms and conditions have been signed based on whatever technology available then. Hence, a suggestion came that we should cancel this project or MoA and go for a new MoA with new technologies of PSP and others. After the cancellation of that the intention is to go ahead with the new MoA with the PSP, solar project and run of the river project in it, the Athena group had expressed that since the government of India at that time had not come out with the details of the PSP guidelines, they were not very clear whether they want to go ahead or not and hence the project got stuck there.”
“After the government of India came up with the new rules and new policy for PSP, the group felt that it was not viable for them to go ahead and neither the state feels that it is viable to go ahead with the PSP and hence we were back to square one and today we are now at a juncture where we had to take decisions that let us go ahead with the old project, the issue infront of us is how do we move forward and the cabinet felt very strongly that since Athena has been working on this project for long and because of the change of scope of work and viability not matching the original plans they had not moved ahead,”he added.
Riangdo power project
On the upgradation of the Riangdo Small Hydro Power Project, Sangma said the power department has come up with a proposal where after detailed study from IIT Roorkee, they have a come to a conclusion that this project has a capacity to go up from 3 MW to 6 MW.
“That would lead to the project becoming viable and hence the proposal has come to enhance the overall outlay of this project and an additional amount of Rs 14 crore has been requested by the department to allow project to go up from 3 MW to 6 MW plant and therefore, the proposal was approved by the government. It will add to the production capacity of MeECL,” he said.
Nongmer Small Hydro Project
Sangma said the cabinet has also approved the proposal for the development of Nongmer Small Hydro Project of 24 megawatt.
“This is a self identified project. The entire investment will be made by the company. In this, the only condition that was required was that certain amount of the power would be bought by the state government. As per the national rules, which allow the national tariff policy 2016, which allows state governments to buy 30% of the power entered into a PPP with the development, we have decided to enter into an agreement to buy 30% and on top of that we will get 12% free power. The project will be fully funded by the private party but we will get advantage by getting more stability in the power. Therefore, the state government has decided to approve the implementation of the Nongmer Small Hydro Power Project.”
Umran project
Sangma said a project in Umran was also identified by JMB Aqua Private Ltd, which is of 13.5 megawatt in the Umran Basin. The government has decided to approve this agreement for the power project to be built in this Umran basin, he added.
