North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (Neepco) and Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) have decided to jointly set up a 250MW coal based power project in Margherita in upper Assam.
Disclosing this to media persons on the sidelines of the 4th North-East Business Summit, union minster of state for power, Jairam Ramesh, said that the joint venture agreement between Neepco and ASEB would be singed in mid October.
Neepco would have 51 per cent stake in the joint venture company and the rest 49 per cent would be ASEB's share.
Though Assam has demanded that the total 250MW should go to its kitty, Ramesh said that as per the existing policy of the centre, Assam can at the most get 200MW.
He assured to "explore the possibility of increasing the share of Assam in future."
V K Abbey, chairman and managing director of Neepco and Ramesh had the second round of discussion with the chief minster of Assam, Tarun Gogoi and power minster Pradyut Bordoloi on September 16.
Ramesh said that there is a proposal to add another 250MW unit to the plant in the future.
He said that the "best" environment friendly technologies would be applied in the plant, keeping in consideration the high sulphur contents in Assam coal.
Ramesh said that he has requested Gogoi not to hand over the implementation of 150MW lower-Kopili hydro electric project to any private player but to Neepco.
Neepco had implemented the upper-Kopili project but has been hanging on the lower-kopili project for last 15 years, prompting the state government to look for private players.
"Since Neepco had done upper-Kopili so it makes sense for Neepco to do lower-Kopili also," said Ramesh.
Ramesh expressed his displeasure over the inordinate delay in the implementation of the 750MW thermal power station in Bongaigaon in lower Assam; whose foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister on 14 January 2004.
He said the entire responsibility for the delay goes to National Thermal Power Station (NTPC), which would be implementing it.
He said he would again visit the site on September 21 to stake stock of the development.
He added that orders of the project have already been placed with BHEL.
