Tovihoto Ayemi, advisor (Power) along with senior officers from the department of Power presented the technical requirements of the state to R.K. Singh, union minister of state for Power and New Renewable Energy in New Delhi on June 15.
A press release by PRO (IPR) Nagaland House, New Delhi, stated that the advisor pointed out to the union minister that the Power sector in the state had been ignored for so many years and there was a need to revamp and modernize this sector but state resources alone were insufficient to bring quick changes. He informed the minister that the state had now identified various potential Hydro power locations but there were numerous challenges to developing these into hydro projects. One such reason was attributed by the advisor to the government of India’s inadequate funding pattern, thereby requiring the state to get gap funding support from NEC/DoNER.
He also submitted a letter from the chief minister requesting the union minister to provide funding for a few priority Hydro projects in the state such as 42 Mega Watt Lower Tizu project, 24 Mega Watt Zungki project and 2.1 Mega Watt Dzuna experimental model project. Tovihoto also suggested that conversion of the existing electro-mechanical meters to prepaid meters was the only solution to mitigate huge AT&C loss of the state, and he requested the union minister to speed up the proposed pre-paid project covering 19 statutory and census towns.
The union minister assured the advisor that top priority would be accorded to Nagaland’s overall power development and costs for hydro projects would be thoroughly examined through appropriate central agencies. The union minister also stated that Nagaland should no longer function in isolation with very outdated systems and he stated that it was high time that the Power sector in the state should also be corporatized to enable the state to avail various benefits from financial institutions.