Following is an excerpt from a report in dnainida.com.

The Orrisa Government has decided to set up more small and micro hydel projects to generate ‘Clean Power’.

“We have sanctioned at least 28 small and micro projects which will generate hydro-power by setting up units on rivers and canals,” Energy minister S N Patro said.

Patro, after chairing a meeting of the state Technical Committee here said the government had received proposals for establishing 82 more small hydel projects in the state.

The proposals were forwarded for verification by the technical committee, official sources said.

Officials from the Department of Energy, Water Resources, Grid Corporation of Orissa and Orissa Hydro Power Generation Corporation, were members of the technical committee who would recommend the small and micro projects, they said.

The minister said while government agencies identified 34 locations for setting up small and micro hydel projects, private parties were interested in 48 other places.

“All the projects will be developed on the basis of private investments,” the minister said adding the capacity of units would range from 100 KW to 25 MW.

An additional 700 MW could be generated in the state, if the project were implemented properly, he said.

… “The small and micro hydel projects will also get a concession of 14 paise per unit of power generation,” he said.

Telegraph also reports on this and summarizes the surplus power situation in Orissa as follows:

More than 1,800MW of power is available in the state as against the average demand of 1,600 to 1700MW.

While the state generates around 600MW of this total electricity from hydro power stations, it gets around 700MW from thermal plants.

The rest is part of the state’s share from the eastern grid and the Centre–owned power plants located in the state.

The state government has already signed MoUs with 13 companies, including Tata Power, Visa Power, Calcutta Electricity Supply Corporation, Essar Power, Jindal Photo, Bhusan Energy and Sterlite Energy, last September for establishment of thermal power plants with an investment of about Rs 59,000 crore to generate about 11,000MW.

Recently, the state government has cleared expansion of three thermal power projects with an additional capacity of 2,000MW.

Sambada names some of the places where this project will be.

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