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| Major Events Vol. 3 Issue No. 19 | February 1 -15, 2007 |
Move to boost power sector in NE The first sectoral summit of the North Eastern Council (NEC) member states held at Passighat in Arunachal Pradesh recently, had viewed that there was the need for a clear, coherent and consistent policy in respect of the power sector in the NE region. This is specially for the fact that power sector constitutes the most important resource of the region and holds the highest potential to propel the region to the front rank of development in the country. It also called for special treatment to the region in the short term to enable it reach the take off stage in the medium term and then to become the front rank region for accelerating development of the country. Union Minister for Development of NE Region (DoNER) Mani Shankar Aiyar said here this evening referring to the ‘Pasighat proclamation on power’, as the declaration of the summit is named. The summit concentrated on power potential of the region and the ways and means to harness this potential. Aiyar said that the DoNER and the NEC had identified 16 priority areas for the development of the region and these included power, roads and inland waterways, among others. It was decided that on every first Monday of a month, the NEC member states would take part in discussions called sectoral summits, on power. The second Monday of a month is earmarked for such summits on roads and the third Monday of a month is allocated for such summits on inland waterways and fourth Monday of a month is meant for such summits on any other issues concerning the region, said the Minister. The second summit meant for discussion on roads is scheduled to be held at Shillong on February 8 and 9, while the third summit on inland waterways scheduled for March 21 and 22 is scheduled to be held in Guwahati, he said. The Passighat summit said in its concluding observation that there could be little doubt that the future of the Northeastern states rested upon its coming into its own through the power sector. Further, it also needs to be recognized that the NE region can make an invaluable contribution indefinitely to the country’s energy security through clean hydel energy. But this immense potential for the development of NE region and the country cannot be realized until and unless special treatment is meted out to NE region in the short term in the expectation and confidence that NE region would reach the take off stage in the medium term and would then become the front rank region for the development of the country as a whole for the long term. An enlightened, overall and long term vision, therefore, needs to inform a clear, coherent and consistent power policy for the region. The major points identified by the summit for the purpose are—to make the power generated in the region available to its people, to enable the region meet the power demand for its economic development, to export surplus power from the region to other parts of the country so that the region, in fact, becomes the “power house of the country”. For achieving the first objective, billed as “power to the people” , the summit called for top priority attention to the small hydro-power programme (SHP) for the region to be supplemented by other sources of new and renewable sources of energy such as biomass and solar energy. Aiyar said that though Arunachal had the highest SHP potential with 492 identified SHPs, only 64 of those were constructed and 48 were under different stages of construction. Same is the picture in other NE states in this regard, he said. Therefore, the summit called for restructuring the region’s SHPs to ensure accelerated implementation of al the identified projects with increased subsidies. Referring to the summit’s observation, the Minister said that though during the tenth plan period, an allocation of Rs 60,000 crore was made for generating 25,000 MW of power in the country, the NE region was covered under it. However, a massive public sector investment in power in the region was envisaged during the 11th plan period. However, the outstanding issues relating to the 2000 ME lower Subansiri project should be sorted out immediately by the Centre in consultation with Asom and Arunachal Governments. | Headlines | Editorial | Coverstory | | Travel Column | News Briefs | | OT Main Page | |
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