India scheduling hydel projects in J&K

New Delhi: India is planning to set up a series of hydroelectric projects to draw 16,400MWs (mega watt) of electricity in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on the Jhelum, Chenab, Indus and Ravi river basins. Indian administered Kashmir power minister, Babu Singh told state assembly on Tuesday that the state rivers have an estimated potential of generating 20,000MWs.

'Out of which 16400MWs have been identified on the Jhelum, Chenab, Indus and Ravi Basins,' he said. The Minister added that while Jhelum has the potential of generating 3560MW, Chenab 10360MW, Indus2060MW and Ravi has the capacity of generating 500MW of electricity.

Singh said Jammu and Kashmir has so far installed just 1869MWs, out of which 309MWs are under state sector and 1560MWs are under Central Sector directly in New Delhi. The gap between installed capacity and actual generation is mostly because of high fluctuations in the discharge of the sources. Replying to a question, he said big companies were hesitant to invest in power sector and local contractors were unable to undertake the work.

Singh said an amount of Rs 19577.71 crores have been earmarked for the power sector under Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan and other centrally sponsored schemes, which include Rs 15617.87 crores being spent by various central agencies.

Of this Rs 4907.00 crores are being spent under Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan on National Hydro Electric Power Corporation (NHPC) Hydel projects, Rs 700.00 crores under Rural Power Schemes, Rs 10.00 crores for 1000 Micro Hydel Project and Rs 2802.79 crores are being spent under the state sector.