NHPC denies offering forest land as collateral to raise funds

NEW DELHI: The NHPC connected Thursday said it was seeking an NOC from the ministry of environment, wood and clime alteration (MoEF&CC) for utilizing assets of the Subansiri Lower task to rise secured indebtedness successful the aboriginal for different projects without offering wood onshore arsenic collateral.The clarification followed reports that MoEF&CC had rejected its connection to rise funds by keeping assets created connected wood onshore successful Arunachal Pradesh arsenic collateral. The reports said NHPC had sought an NOC from Arunachal Pradesh govt, which, successful turn, sought clarification from the ministry. The situation ministry rejected the proposal, saying it was “not tenable” nether Forest Conservation Act, arsenic usage arsenic collateral was a secondary purpose, beyond the main nonsubjective for which the wood onshore had been approved.The NHPC clarified that the wood onshore was ne'er offered arsenic collateral to rise secured debt, arsenic the quality of these parcels was “right to usage only”. It added that astir of the indebtedness backing required for the Subansiri Lower task had already been deployed, with unit-wise commissioning starting from Dec 2025 onwards. It said determination had been nary interaction connected the equilibrium backing required for the Subansiri Lower task and its commissioning was progressing arsenic per schedule.

Subansiri Lower is among 8 caller hydropower projects being executed by NHPC and its associated ventures and subsidiaries. With its 23 commissioned projects, NHPC presently generates 7,771 MW of hydropower.In reply to a question successful Lok Sabha, Union powerfulness curate Manohar Lal Khattar said the 8 caller projects, coming up astatine a full outgo of ₹98,107 crore, volition adhd 8,514 MW of procreation capacity.Apart from the Subansiri project, which volition adhd 2,000 MW of capacity, the different upcoming projects are the Dibang multipurpose task (2,800 MW) successful Arunachal Pradesh; Teesta-VI successful Sikkim (500 MW); Rangit-IV (120 MW), a associated task being implemented by JPCL successful Sikkim; the Ratle task (850 MW) being implemented by RHPCL successful Jammu & Kashmir; and the Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Kiru (624 MW) and Kwar (540 MW) hydroelectric projects being implemented by CVPPL successful Jammu & Kashmir.Khattar besides mentioned successful his reply that NHPC provides occupation opportunities to section people, including project-affected families, done contractors wherever it sets up plants, which make section income and amended surviving standards. Moreover, bidding opportunities are provided to section residents and PAFs to beforehand section entrepreneurship and enactment section businesses, helium said. For redressal of grievances, the govt has launched a Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System portal, nether which complaints are examined and disposed of successful a time-bound manner, helium added.