Ranganadi Hydro Electric Project (RHEP) in Arunachal Pradesh’s Lower Subansiri district will be shut down for three months from February 1 to April 30 to facilitate repair and maintenance work at the tunnel which has developed a leakage.
This was on informed on Thursday by Arunachal Pradesh power minister Tamiyo Taga who further appealed to the public to cooperate with the state’s department of power during this “crucial period of three months”.
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The RHEP located at Yazali has an installed capacity of 405 Mega Watt (MW) power.
Taga assured that the shortage of 60 MW of power which the state would face with the RHEP’s shutting down, had been taken care of. Taga informed that the department of power has signed power purchase agreements with National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and North East Electrical Power Corporation Ltd (NEEPCO) at the cost of Rs 28.27 crore.
“According to the agreement, the NEEPCO Ltd will allocate 10 MW of power from Kathalguri Gas Power Station in Assam and 24 MW of power from Agartala Gas Thermal Combined Cycle Power Project in Tripura by regulating the power allocation for Meghalaya for a period of five and a half hours daily (16:30 hrs to 22:00 hrs) for three months,” the minister said.
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He added that the NTPC Ltd will allocate 30 MW of power from Unchachar-I Thermal Power Plant to the state on round the clock basis for three months.
In case of any exigency on real time basis, we can over draw to an extent of 12 per cent of scheduled quantum of power, Taga said.
Responding to questions why NEEPCO has decided to shut down the project when board exams are approaching along with general elections, Taga said that shutting down of the project was shocking for the government too.
The intimation for shutting down the project came to us on January 11, the power minister said expressing hope that the NEEPCO would inform about such closures, if any, in the future well in advance.
Excluding Anjaw, Upper Siang, Dibang Valley, Shi-Yomi and Tawang districts which are dependent on local generation of power, the average peak demand of power in the State is reportedly 100 MW per day.