Nagaland power minister hails funding for roads, bridges in 'Generation Plan'

Nagaland's Minister for Power and Parliamentary Affairs, K.G. Kenye, extended his gratitude to the Union Ministry of Power for including funding for roads and bridges in the newly-introduced 'Generation Plan', during the Conference of Power Ministers of States and UTs, held in New Delhi on November 12. 

The conference was chaired by Union Minister for Power Housing & Urban Affairs, Manohar Lal Khattar. 

During the conference, Kenye thanked the Union Minister for introducing the Generation Plan, which grants 24 per cent equity for projects to be implemented as Joint Ventures (JVs). 

Kenye highlighted that the present peak demand of the state is 180 MW which is projected to reach 360 MW by 2030, further informing that the total installed capacity of the state from all sources is 228 MW out of which the state own generation attributes for only 26 MW at present. 

He also stated that the state depends mostly on the Central sector allocation and with the rest met from expensive energy market with negligible generation pertaining to which developing generation projects has become the priority for which the state is making all efforts.

Furthermore, the Nagaland minister requested the Union minister to take favourable action to aid in bridging the demand gap to meet the projected demand of the state by 2030 in order to have the resource adequacy in place to meet the growing demand of power in the state.

On the implementation of Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) in the state, the minister said that there were some technical hitches which delayed the project, with most of the issues resolved, the execution of work will start in the field very shortly. He stated that after successful implementation of the scheme, the ACS and ARR gap of the Department will be greatly reduced with improvement in AT&C losses and enhanced reliability and quality of power supply in the state.

Discussion during the meeting included Operational Performance & Financial Viability of DISCOM’s, Resource Adequacy, Pumped Storage Project (PSP) and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). Implementation of RDSS and PM Surya Ghar was also reviewed.

The minister was accompanied by Er. Wabangmeren Jamir, Engineer-in-Chief (Power), and Er. Moameren, Superintending Engineer (Transmission).