SHILLONG, April 1 (NNN): In a big relief to Meghalaya, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has agreed to reallocate 70 per cent of Meghalaya’s power share to Tamil Nadu.
“We are very fortunate that after a lot of hard work and even some court cases, now NTPC has agreed and they are working towards reallocating the power to different states. Approximately, 56 MW has been allotted to Tamil Nadu of the share of 86 MW that was total for Meghalaya,” Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K Sangma informed on Thursday.
“This means that now Meghalaya doesn’t have to pay for almost 70 per cent of the power (it did not take),” Sangma said.
The chief minister said that the state government is also hopeful that very soon the rest of the 25-30 MW will also be given to other states.
“With that we will be completely free of this agreement that was signed many years back because of which more than Rs 300 to Rs 400 crore, Meghalaya government had to pay for not having used a single unit of power,” he said.
Sangma added, “We are going to see that the power will be used by Tamil Nadu and this agreement I think it’s already signed or will be signed in a few days and hopefully the rest of the power will also be reallocated.”
It may be mentioned that the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) was signed by the then Congress-led state government with the NTPC in 2007.