Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu’s death in a chopper crash could bury a ‘hydro project signing scam’, dealing a fiscal blow to several corporate houses.
Between 2006, and December 2009, the Arunachal Pradesh government signed more than 150 pacts with hydropower developers to generate 63,000 MW of power.
As per a clause in the agreement, the developers — many without power sector experience — paid an upfront premium per megawatt the government had fixed arbitrarily.
The ‘MoU virus’— as union environment minister Jairam Ramesh calls it — saw private players paying a premium of Irs.150000/MW for projects of 100-499mw capacity, Irs.200000/mw for 500-999 mw projects and Irs.300000/mw for 1000mw or more.
However, the projects were far from transparent and only 12% of them were allotted through competitive bidding. A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report cast doubts over the project-signing spree and pointed out that the advance processing fee deprived the government of interest income of Irs.31million.
Khandu’s “dream” of making Arunachal Pradesh “India’s power capital” had met with resistance at home too. “The government under him played with nature,” said Vijay Taram of Forum for Siang Dialogue, an anti-dam NGO.
Other anti-dam NGOs also accused the Khandu government of ensuring a kickback. Green activists said documents on the ‘hydropower scam’ in Arunachal Pradesh ran into 400 pages. An activist opposing the NHPC’s Lower Subansiri dam said, “We have written letters to the CBI and NIA seeking a thorough probe, but they have been unresponsive.”
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