SHILLONG, Feb 11: The Meghalaya government has sought help from the Union ministry of new and renewable energy for implementing hydro, solar, wind and biomass projects in the state.
“We have sought help from the ministry of new and renewable energy in terms of few projects that we want to showcase and start implementing in Meghalaya,” state power minister, James Sangma said here on Thursday after returning from New Delhi.
Informing he had a meeting with Indu Chaturvedi, secretary, ministry of new and renewable energy, Sangma said, “I had fruitful discussions with him in terms of the sheer potential of Meghalaya in the generation of power through hydro and solar, wind and biomass”. “I am hopeful that with the kind of cooperation that we have been receiving till now, and also in the future, Meghalaya will go a long way in terms of new and renewable energy,” the power minister said.
Sangma informed that he also met A. Kumar, who is the secretary of the ministry of power. “We discussed many issues regarding the power sector in Meghalaya and the challenges faced for quite some time now. But the ministry of power has been very supportive that way and we are looking forward to the kind of support required to solve all the issues,” he said.
Elaborating further, Sangma said, “Issues regarding implementation of projects and closure of certain schemes which are lingering on for a long time were discussed and we are looking forward to finding early solutions”.
Asked about the closure of schemes, the power minister said, “There are many reasons… one of the reasons why I went to the ministry of power is to let that be known to the Centre, and at the same time, seek assistance. We hope it will be done in an expeditious manner”.
He informed that some of the schemes for closure were the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana and Integrated Power Development Scheme, to name a few.
The Power minister, who also attended the North East Region Power Committee (NERPC) meeting in Kohima recently, said, “It was a meeting where the main issues pertaining to the Northeast energy sector were discussed. There are many issues pertaining to certain differences between the states and utilities which were discussed and there was a consensus to resolve the issues”.
“We were able to take up a few new schemes that have been proposed under the NERPC and Power System Development Fund (PSDF) and those were discussed and taken up and passed by the committee,” he said.
