Sinlung /
13 January 2015

Mizoram plans to give 210 MW HEP to NEEPCO, says Chief Minister

By Adam Halliday

Aizawl, Jan 13
: The Mizoram government plans to let the government-backed North-Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) take over the 210 MW Tuivai HEP in northern Mizoram, which was earlier touted as India’s first proposed “PPP-mode with Viability Gap Funding” initiative for a hydro-electricity project.

Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla told Congress workers during a meeting Monday that NEEPCO’s board of directors will land in Aizawl later this month for talks with the state government on how to carry the project forward.

A PPP-mode VGF for the 210 MW Tuivai project was approved by the Finance Ministry in mid-2013. Under the move, the developer and the government would together foot the bill for constructing the hydro-power dam.

But the plans fell through with banks and interested private developers when it came to the tender stage, and the state government has had to look for other alternatives.

CM Lal Thanhawla had earlier said the state government is looking to develop HEPs that can together produce 2500 MW by damming all of the state’s rivers.

He said Monday the government expects to commission the 60 MW Tuirial HEP by the end of this year.

Mizoram is a power-deficit state and produces just about a tenth of its total demand.’

The current government’s stated aim is to make it a power-surplus state.

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