New Power Policy for Nagaland soon: Kipili

Principal Correspondent Kohima, December 16 Minister for Power Kipili Sangtam today said his department is formulating a New Power Policy for the State with a focus towards generation and addition of transmission and distribution capacity. Replying to Congress MLA Imtiwapang Aier on how the department is working to meet the demands for power in the State, Sangtam agreed that “the state is facing acute shortage of power because we have less generation”. He said in order to meet the increasing power demand of the State by the end of 12th Plan, the department has initiated the following action plan: add generation capacity within the State by 60MW; Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with following power stations: 740MW Pallatana Gas Power Station – 27MW out of which 14.5MW has been made available from the first unit; 750MW Bongaigon Thermal Power Station – 32MW; 2000MW Lower Subansiri HEP – 34MW; 600MW Kameng HEP – 20MW; 110MW Pare HEP – 20MW and 150MW Tapaikum HEP – 75MW. He also informed that the department has applied for allocation of power with the following power projects: 3000MW Dibang Multipurpose Project – 150MW and 500MW Garo Hills TPP – 30MW. CLP Leader Tokheho said the State has lots of potentials and instead of depending on others, we should be able to generate our own power. The minister responded that in order to generate own hydro electric power, Dikhu (150MW Plant) and Tizu-Dzungki (150MW Plant) are being initiated but the projects are getting delayed because of problems arising due to the land holding system. He, therefore, said the time for completion of the projects cannot be ascertained. He asserted that House that the department has been working very hard to provide good power supply to the State. The minister further stated that if we want to have healthy power supply, the people of the State, including landowners, should extend cooperation. Further, stating that the department has been without any power policy for past 50 years, he, however, said “this time we are serious on formulating proper power policy and also asserted to overcome the technical losses”. Replying to MLA Apok Jamir’s query, Sangtam said there is no uniformity in the rate of purchase of power from other states while also asserting to lay the different rate of purchase during the next sitting of the House.