Now, U'khand looks to locals for power

Local entrepreneurs and panchayats get sops to build projects in the power deficient state.

With a slew of sops, the Uttarakhand government has decided to give preference to local entrepreneurs and gram panchayats to build micro and mini hydel projects for power generation.

In its new power policy, the government has reposed considerable faith in locals and gram panchayats to boost electricity generation in Uttarakhand, which is currently facing acute power shortage.

Besides gram panchayats and locals, societies registered in the state were also being given preference in power generation programmes, top officials here said.

"We are also giving various incentives including loans from banks and subsidies to local entrepreneurs," said an official.

Hydro projects have been grouped in three broad categories "� micro, mini and small. Projects with capacity up to 100 KW will be categorised as micro, mini between 100 KW and up to 5 MW and small projects will consist of those with a capacity between 5 MW and 25 MW. Big projects will be above 25 MW.

Significantly, top officials see a paradigm shift in the new policy. The previous government had reposed more faith in private companies from outside the state.

The government has also made provision for self-identified projects. In this category, developers may identify projects, prepare the detailed project report (DPR) and ask for allotment.

In the other category, the state or state-sponsored agencies may identify the projects of any size, prepare a DPR and allot them.

However, small projects would be open to all and there would be no reservations. For this, premium would be decided as and when they are allotted depending upon the capacity of the project, the officials said adding there would be open competitive bidding in this regard.

In yet another provision of the new power policy, industrial units, which are located in Uttarakhand and willing to participate in the open competitive bid for the purpose of establishing renewable energy projects for their captive use, would be given preference. But thatwould be only when their bids are not less than 80 percent of the highest bid.