ITANAGAR, OCT 5 : The MLA-cum-Advisor(Power & Hydropower) Balo Raja alongwith other officers of state government on Thursday has attended the meeting convened by Ministry of New & Renewal Energy on possible options for development of Renewal Energy in the North Eastern Region of the country.
In order to make it viable for the interest of both the nation as well as its beneficiaries while formulating its policy, the meeting was convened by the Union Minister for Power & NRE today in New Delhi with Ministers for Power and its Commissioners/Secretaries of all the NE States, which was attended by Sri Balo Raja, MLA-cum-Advisor(Power & Hydropower) along with the Director(APEDA) and PS to Advisor on behalf of Arunachal.
The Union Minister highlighted that the very purpose of the meeting was to understand the specific requirements of the beneficiary States, so that the policy/scheme can be formulated according to the demand and requirements of the people of the NE Region. He further added that the policy would ensure the right of the consumers for uninterrupted and reliable power on a 24x7x365 basis through renewal resources. In order to make the PMKUSUM schemes more beneficiary-friendly, the Union Minister has assured that the subsidies being provided by the MNRE would be increased up to 65%, so that the burden on the State exchequer and the beneficiaries can be reduced to a reasonable level.
Raja, while taking part in the discussion, highlighted the issues and demands of the State for 50,000 more solar street lights, high-mass lights, restoration of the grants of MNRE for development of small hydropower projects and sanction of the comprehensive DPR submitted to the MNRE worth Rs.5480 crore for development of Small hydel projects with 356 MW in the remote and border areas.
On this, the Union Minister informed that all those issues were in active consideration of the Ministry and assured that those will be sanctioned within November this year. Informed Raja.
The union minister further suggested to all the NE States to submit proposals for Central Financial Assistances against development of Mini-grid, Solar villages, towns and cities which are not connected with grid system, where he even agreed in-principle to lend Viability Gap Funding to attract private investments in the region vis-à-vis to generate employment opportunities to the youths. The Advisor (Power & Hydropower) added.
