Himachal hydro project to start in May

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone of a major hydro project in Himachal Pradesh next month, top officials said here today.

"Singh will lay the foundation stone of the 430-MW Rampur project (there's a 1500-MW Nathpa Jhakri power project) to be built on the Sutlej river," said Appa Rao, chief of the Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam Limted (SJVNL), a major central power public sector company.

"Although we are not sure of the exact date but the Prime Minister, along with UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, will visit the state sometime in the second week of May," Rao told reporters here.

The Rampur project, some 132 km from here, will be built by the SJVNL and the state government at Rs 2,500 crore.

Engineers say in order to save money, the diverted Sutlej waters of the Nathpa Jhakri power project will be used to build the Rampur project, which is expected to be completed in about four years.

The Nathpa Jhakri power project is the country's largest hydro-power project and was completed a year ago.

"So far the project has generated 6.6 billion units of power and generated Rs 1,550 crore as revenue," Rao said.

"The Himachal government, which has a 30 per cent equity in the Nathpa Jhakri project, will make Rs 220 crore per year," he said.

When asked about the possible bursting of the Parchu lake formed in the upstream Sutlej in Tibet last year on the Sutlej river and flooding of the river and dams downstream, Rao said, "On the basis of information exchanged with Chinese engineers by the Central Water Commission, the lake was not likely to burst."

"But we are constantly monitoring the lake by satellite imagery, apart from exchanging information with the Chinese. The lake is about 40 metres deep," he said.

Fears are being cast by many of the possible bursting of the lake this summer as the snow in the high mountains of Tibet melts and breaches the artificial lake.