SHILLONG, JULY 18: The new Umtru Hydel Electric Project in Ri Bhoi district holds promises for power-starve Meghalaya when it will start generating 40 mega watt of power from December next year.
The construction of the new Umtru hydel project is being executed by the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL). A Fact Finding Committee (FFC) constituted by the opposition political parties inspected the site on Friday.
The inspection is a part of the investigation by the FFC into the power scenario in Meghalaya before it comes up with a complete report on power scenario in the state within one month.
The committee has also decided to submit its report to the NDA led government at the centre highlighting various issues and problems relating to the power sector in the state.
The delegation was led by United Democratic Party (UDP) working president Jemino Mawthoh and NPP spokesperson James K Sangma.
The Rs 461.27 crore new Umtru hydel project is being constructed on the dam of the old Umtru hydel project and officials informed that the same dam will be facilitating both the old and new projects.
Despite the finalization of the tender in December 2007, the project could kick start only on January 2009 because of land acquisition problem.
“The new project is expected to be completed by December 2015,” project additional chief engineer E Sungoh told the delegation.
Informing that old Umtru project was conceived way back in the 1950s having power generation capacity of only 11.2 MW, Sungoh said, “But now the new project is designed with a capacity of generating of up to 40 MW and will give an annual generation of about 193 million units.”
Though the new Umtru project is also a run of the river project, the additional chief engineer however said, “Unlike Leshka hydel power project with only 350 sq km, the new project has a big catchment area of about 1020 sq km wherein the flow of river is much more here which is quite an advantage for the project even during lean season.”
Stating that earlier it was decided to carry forward the construction of the new project on the old existing dam, he, however informed later after testing, the old structure was found not to be safe for construction of the new project as there is lot of water seepage and the MeECL decided to construct a new dam.
According to Sungoh at initial stage of the detail project report, the design flood was designed only for 2400 cubic. He said, “However, when the central water commission (CWC) conducted a review on the design flood, they decided to put it at 3820 cubic.”
Pointing out the observation of the FFC, UDP working president Jemino Mawthoh expressed satisfaction on the progress of work so far as the construction of the Umtru project is concerned. He said, “With the coming up of the new Umtru project where generation would be around 40MW, I think it will add a lot to the power generation of the state.”
Mawthoh said that going by the inputs from project manager and engineers, the FFC were made to understand that the project will be commissioned by December next year. He added, “I hope this will be realistic because we don’t want this project to be like other projects which have become non-starters and hope that this new Umtru project will be of beneficial for Meghalaya.”
The FFC was also briefed with the problem of the dysfunctional of the two machines of the old power project. Mawthoh said that the team would like to know why these two machines have become dysfunctional and whether efforts are being made to replace these machines or bring about some kind of corrective measures so that the state does not lose out on power.- By Our Reporter
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