Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Oct 14: Amid the spectre of gripping power crisis, the state government Tuesday decided to revive nine hydro-power units at three major reservoirs in the state to meet the growing power demand of consumers.
A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the Secretariat here.
Briefing newsmen after the meeting, energy secretary Suresh Mohapatra said, “Production units at Hirakud, Chipilma and Balimela would be renovated to enhance hydro-power production in the state.”
The state government will invest over Rs 887crore for their renovation.
As per a decision at the meeting, the government targets to generate 11 MW of additional hydro power from Hirakud with the renovation of its two units at an investment of Rs 158 crore. “The renovation work would be completed in two-and-half years,” Mohapatra said.
Likewise, Rs 65.67 crore would be spent for renovation of a unit at Chipilima which would take 20 months to complete. Rs 664 crore has also been earmarked for renovation of six units at Balimela. Eighteen months each will be required to develop a unit.
The state government last year had generated 4073 million units of hydro power. However, it has witnessed 1062 million unit deficit this fiscal as several hydro power units have remained defunct and most of the reservoirs in the state have shortage of water due to a 13 per cent shortfall of rain.
Chief secretary GC Pati, energy minister, development commissioner, additional chief secretary, (finance), water resources secretary and Gridco CMD attended the meeting. A senior official said the state government needs to focus on hydro-power generation as it is much cheaper than thermal power. He, however, said that a meeting between the water resources department and energy department would be held to determine as to how much water will be used to generate hydro-power.
