Government of India Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region ****** MINUTES OF THE 4th MEETING TO REVIEW THE STATUS OF PALATANA POWER PROJECT & ACCOMPANYING TRANSMISSION AND COORDINATION ISSUES CHAIRED BY MS. JAYATI CHANDRA, SECRETARY, DONER Date : 19th May, 2011 Venue: Committee Room, Ministry of DONER List of participants is annexed. Opening the discussions, Secretary, DONER stated that this meeting specifically is on assessing on the readiness to evacuate power and use it in the region for the two generating units which will be ready by the following dates: 2. (i) Unit I December, 2011 (ii) Unit II March, 2012 For evacuation within the region, North Eastern Transmission Company Ltd. (NETC) is developing a 400 KV double circuit, 861 Km long trunk transmission line connecting Palatana to Bogaigaon. This line is being developed in 2 stretches: Page 1 of 6 (i) Palatana to Silchar : (ii) Silchar to Bogaigaon : 246 Kms & 415 Kms. In addition, PowerGrid and the State power utilities are constructing 15 sub-stations (PGCIL – 10, Assam Electric Generation Corporation Ltd – 3 & Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd. – 2) and 11 sub-transmission lines (all PGCIL). With the movement of ODGs through Bangladesh and BHEL agreeing to swap Bawana (NCT of Delhi) turbine with Palatana, the 2nd generating unit will be ready by March, 2012. Therefore, the readiness for evacuation needs to be re-evaluated. 3. There are forest clearances issues in Assam and Meghalaya for the transmission lines. Director, Ministry of DONER has visited Assam and Meghalaya for discussions with State Forest Departments. Secretary, DONER has addressed Secretary, Tribal Affairs regarding the Forest Rights Act. Secretary directed the State Governments to assist NETC/PGCIL sorting of issues of compensation demanded by farmers. Tripura particularly needs to do more for the Palatana-Silchar line which is of immediate critical importance. 4. It was agreed by all that power from the first generating unit can be evacuated considering the pace and the likelihood of commissioning of the transmission and sub-transmission lines and sub-stations. Evacuation readiness of Unit 2 raises serious misgivings. As the Silchar-Bongaigaon 400 KV DC line of NETC will be ready only by June, 2012, it is imperative that the transmission line upto Byrnihat in Meghalaya is completed by the time Unit 2 of generation is ready i.e. March, 2012. It also implies that the Byrnihat sub-station should be ready by March, 2012. These are critical deadlines for evacuating power from Unit 2. Page 2 of 6 5. The important sub-stations by Assam and Tripura will be ready as follows: (i) Hailakandi – Assam : November, 2013 (ii) Azra – Assam : December, 2013 (iii) Surjyamanipur – Tripura : December, 2012 (It is important to note that since this sub-station is going to be completed only by December, 2012, Tripura has to make contingency plan for drawing power from Unit 1.) (iv) P K Bari – Tripura : December, 2011 (It will match with Unit 1 of generation.) 6. The power sharing agreement between the States and OTPC is as follows: S. No. State Allocation (MW) 1 Tripura 196 2 Assam 240 3 Arunachal Pradesh 22 4 Nagaland 27 5 Mizoram 22 6 Manipur 42 7 Meghalaya 79 8 IL&FS / OTPC 98 Total 726 Note: 50% of allocation is assumed to be linked with Unit -1 Page 3 of 6 7. It was agreed that at this point, there are many imponderables about the readiness of the different stakeholders for evacuation of Unit 2 which is going to be ready by March, 2012. It would be very unfortunate if the generation capacity of Unit 2 is left idle for want of evacuation infrastructure. It will be a setback to the first commercial power project of the North Eastern Region. 8. Secretary, DONER will write to Cabinet Secretary and Power Secretary. 9. Meeting ended with vote of thanks to the chair. ……. Page 4 of 6 Annexure 4th MEETING TO REVIEW THE STATUS OF PALATANA POWER PROJECT, ACCOMPANYING TRANSMISSION AND COORDINATION ISSUES . List of participants Sl. No. Name of the participant Designation and name of the organization 1. Ms. Jayati Chandra Secretary, DONER …in the chair 2. Ms. Jayashree Mukherjee Joint Secretary, DONER 3. Shri Alemtemshi Jamir, Addl. Chief Secretary & Development Commissioner, Govt. of Nagaland 4. Shri R.K. Vaish Principal Resident Commissioner, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh 5. Shri Sumeet Jerath Principal Secretary(Power), Govt. of Assam 6. Shri Saraswati Prasad Principal Secretary, (Environment Forest), Government of Assam 7. Shri Pankaj Jain R.C. Government of Meghalaya 8. Shri Arun Kumar Director, Ministry of Power 9. Shri Brajesh Mishra Director, Ministry of DONER 10. Shri Umakant Director, Ministry of DONER 11. Shri Ravinder Gupta Director, CEA 12. Shri Sarvant Kumar Consultant, R.C. Office, Nagaland 13. Shri T.P. Khaund Principal Adviser, Govt. of Mizoram 14. Shri NG Birjit Singh, Suptd. Engineer(Elec), Electricity Department, Govt. of Manipur 15. Shri Khose Sale Suptd. Engineer, Department of Power, Govt. of Nagaland 16. Shri Anil Jain, General Manager(Corporate Monitoring) POWERGRID Corporation of India & Page 5 of 6 17. Shri Rakesh Verma Chief Manager(Corporate Monitoring), POWERGRID Corporation of India 18. Shri R.K. Madan, Sr. Adviser, ONGC 19. Shri K. Marbasiang Chief Engineer (Transmission), MeECL. 20. Shri R. Syibm Suptd. Engineer, MeECL 21. Shri Umesh Chandra MD, NETC 22. Shri M. Krishna Kumar Director(Projects), NETC 23. Shri Kumaresh Chakrabarti Director(T) & CMD, i/c. TSECL, Tripura ……… Page 6 of 6