EMN
DIMAPUR, AUG 2
Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang called on Union Minister for Power Piyush Goyal at New Delhi today.
At the meeting, the Chief Minister apprised the Union Minister about the acute shortage of power in the State, which is affecting the normal lives of people, work, business etc. He also informed the Union Minister that the actual power requirement of the State is 80 MW whereas the State is hardly receiving 30 MW power supply.
Zeliang further added that due to lack of basic requirement of electricity in the State, many youths who want to set up small-scale industries in the State but could not do so. “We have lots of potential to set up commercial and small scale industries and if 80 MW of power is supplied, it will not only suffice the commercial needs but will also create many more employment opportunities for the Naga youth” he said.
According to the central guidelines, only 9 towns can be accommodated in the central schemes. Chief Minister appealed to the Centre that basing on the population of Nagaland, central guidelines should be relaxed so that 11 districts in the state could be accommodated to bring about all round development in the State.
The Union Minister on the other hand assured the Chief Minister that his Ministry would provide 80 MW to the State in a year’s time, if the State government provides its support in building infrastructure, Right of Way (RoW) and removal of bottlenecks coming in the way of Power project.
He also urged the Chief Minister to allow NEEPCO to execute the two Hydro Power Projects at Tizu and Zungki, which would benefit the State by about 30 MW free powers supply. The Union Minister asked the Chief Minister to convey the State’s approval of these two projects so that it could be announced during the visit of Prime Minister to Nagaland, at Hornbill festival.
He expressed concern about the slow progress of the Re-structured Accelerated Power Development Reform Programme (RAPDRP) implementation in the State and urged the Chief Minister to complete the scheme in 9 towns for which money has already been released by the Government of India. On completion, more towns will be covered as requested by the Chief Minister, he said.
On the issue of bringing transparency in the system, the Union Minister asked the State government to immediately stop manual tendering and adopt e-tendering system.
The officers of the Ministry also drew the attention of Chief Minister of the slow pace of implementation of rural electrification work and commissioning of substations under RGGVY programme.
Chief Minister was accompanied by Y.Patton, Home Minister, Kiplli Sangtam, Power Minister, Khose Sale, Superintending Engineer and Jyoti Kalash, Resident Commissioner of Nagaland House, Delhi.
The meeting was attended by Secretary (Power), Addl. Secretary (Power), Joint Secretary (Power) and Director (Power) looking after North East.
Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang held a meeting earlier in the day with the Chief of Indigo Airlines and discussed the matter about the Indigo Airlines operations in two sectors of Dimapur and Kolkata. The Indigo representatives were requested to submit their proposal to the State Government at the earliest. The Indigo representative has also shown keen interest to operate in Nagaland.
According to Media Cell, CMO, P. Paiwang Konyak, Parliamentary Secretary Transport & IPR and Lalthara, Advisor to Chief Minister also attended the meeting.
