Poachers kill male rhino in Kaziranga
Kaziranga: An adult male rhino was killed and its horn taken away by poachers in Kaziranga National Park in Assam, taking the number of pachyderm deaths to 16 this year, a senior Forest Department official said on Sunday. The rhino was killed near Kothalchang Forest Camp in Burapahar range of the ‘World Heritage Site’ around midnight, the official said. During routine patrolling in the wee hours, the Assam Forest Security Force personnel found its carcass, he said. Stating the poachers were suspected to be from the neighbouring Karbi Anglong district hills, the official said seven empty cartridge shells of .303 rifle were found near the carcass. Earlier, on November 22 a female rhino was killed by poachers in the national park near its Borghup Forest Camp in Burapahar range. In October, a rhino that had strayed out of the Park was killed by animal thieves in Majuli island in midst of river Brahmaputra in Jorhat district, and its horn, nails and parts of skin peeled off. (PTI)
NEEPCO starts commercial production
Agartala: North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) has started commercial production from its Manarchak power plant in Sepahijala district. “Commercial production of the Monarchak plant started from December 24. Now we are getting full load production which rose to 67 mw. Another 36 mw would be available from this project when the steam turbine would be operational from this combined project,” Coordinator of NEEPCO project in Tripura, Asit Chowdhury, said. “The installed capacity of this gas-based thermal power project is 101 mw, but we would get 2 mw more when additional 36 mw production from the steam turbine would be added within next month,” Chowdhury told PTI. He said the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) was informed that the production cost per unit was Rs. 3.88 and the final decision regarding the rate per unit would be taken by CERC itself. Currently, NEEPCO is supplying power to the state government as ‘unscheduled’ power and once the power tariff is fixed by the CERC, the regional power company will supply on the basis of new power tariff. (PTI)
