32 hydel projects under progress in State: Vikar

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 26: Minister of State for Power, Vikar Rasool while replying to a clubbed question of Naresh Kumar Gupta, Syed Asgar Ali and Sham Lal Bhagat informed the House that the 32 projects are in operation in the State, with aggregate capacity of 2813.46 MW.
These comprise 21 projects with capacity of 761.96 MW in State Sector, 7 projects with capacity of 2009 MW in Central sector and4 projects with capacity of 42.5 MW in private sector. He said that there are 4 hydel projects including Baglihar-I, Bhaderwah, Dulhasti and Ranjala Dunadi in operation and 34 hydel project under execution by various agencies in erstwhile Doda district.
The Minister said the DPRs of 1856 MW Sawalkote HEP has been submitted to CEA for TEC which is under appraisal and concurrently Geological Investigation works and Environmental Impact Assessment studies are under way. He said 850 MW Ratle HEP has been awarded to M/s GVK Developmental Project Pvt Limited through competitive bidding process. The project is presently under implementation and is targeted to be completed in 2017.
The Minister informed that 190 local and non- local youth have been engaged by GVK and its sub- contractors. He said the developers and their sub- contractors have been advised by the JKSPDC to give priority to locals while making recruitments in order of preference to people whose land comes under the project, people belonging to the concerned village, neighbouring villages, concerned administrative blocks, district, adjoining district and people of the State. He said 23 subcontractors/ vendors have been engaged by M/s GVK and M/s L&T for carrying out various works and providing services, out of which 22 are from J&K State.