By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 28: The state government has told the Centre the modalities proposed by the Ministry of Power vis-à-vis NTPC to set up pump storage projects (PSPs) are not favourable to Meghalaya.
Power Minister AT Mondal made Meghalaya’s position clear while speaking on the matter related to NOC from Meghalaya to set up PSPs during a meeting of the power ministers of northeastern and eastern Indian states at Gangtok.
Mondal apprised Union Power Minister Manohar Lal that Meghalaya flagged its concerns about the PSP modalities many times but no response has been received yet.
The central minister assured that the ministry will work out modalities which will help the states as well the CPSUs. He advised Meghalaya to explore the idea of setting up solar power plants.
Mondal apprised Lal that Meghalaya has immense potential for hydropower and the state needs assistance from the Centre to set up small hydropower plants. The matter was discussed at length and Lal directed the officers of the ministry to work out the modalities.
Mondal also apprised the forum that although Meghalaya is committed to having a robust resource adequacy plan in place to ensure there is no probability of loss of load at any point of time, yet there have been some observations of the state on the Final Resource Adequacy Plan prepared by CEA. He said the concerns have been raised before CEA and a reply is awaited.
He told the forum the power sector of Meghalaya has improved a lot in last five years, where the state has seen a steady improvement in billing and collection figures of MePDCL as well as a significant decline in AT&C losses from 32% in 2019 to 17% in 2024.
