SHILLONG, July 25: The High Court of Meghalaya has advised the state government to look into the prospect of setting up small water-based power plants in view of the state’s hilly terrain, heavy rainfall and availability of flowing water for most part of the year.
Hearing a PIL on Tuesday on power cuts and load shedding, a division bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W Diengdoh said smaller power projects would “ensure that large deforestation need not be resorted to”.
During the hearing, the state government filed a status report, submitting that the power shortfall demand has been reduced to 13% across the state. But the court said such shortfall is quite significant and the government should ensure that the shortfall is removed entirely within a reasonable time.
“At the same time, both the petitioner and the citizens should understand that these measures have a gestation gap and take some time and cannot be addressed overnight. There are revenue and expense issues, infrastructure project issues and, at the end of the day, they are matters of policy,” the court said in its order.
It said in some places, the terrain is tailor-made for small hydel projects while in some other places, existing hydel projects may be augmented.
“A blueprint requires to be prepared as to the steps necessary to be taken with empirical studies on the expected demand, say five years or 15 years down the line and the infrastructure development to be undertaken by the State to meet such increased demand over a period of time,” the court said.
It added that there is no band-aid solution which may be resorted to in this case.
The court hoped that the outlines of a long-term plan to ensure there is no shortfall of electricity in the state after five or eight years will be presented to the court when the matter appears next six weeks later.
For the limited purpose of meeting the immediate demand, the state was asked to explore the possibilities of availing of power from the open grid or from other Central power agencies which have excess supply available.
The government submitted that the Ganol Hydel Project has already been synchronised and it is expected to be commissioned on August 1, 2023.
