NHPC's 'biggest' Subansiri hydropower project stalled on panel names

Construction for 2,000 Mw began more than 13 years earlier but has been stalled on ecological concerns; panel of experts to reassess also stuck at NGT

The fate of what could have been the country’s largest hydropower project is stuck on the composition of a committee.

In May, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) reserved its order on whether the committee for the 2,000 megawatt (Mw) project in Arunachal Pradesh, planned 15 years earlier, should continue.

Being put up by state-owned NHPC, the Subansiri Lower Hydropower Project has meanwhile seen its cost shoot up by Rs 132 billion from an initially envisaged Rs 62 billion. Consequently, the power rate has also multiplied, to Rs 6.36 a unit (kilowatts an hour) by April 2017, from Rs 1.53 a