Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader M.Y. Tarigami on Wednesday wrote a letter to Union Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh to express his opposition to the government’s agreement on the offtake of power for a period of 40 years from J&K’s Ratle Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited (RHPCL).
“The offtake of power for a period of 40 years is not only the Government of India’s unjust decision but also against the development of J&K economy. The decision being highly unjustified and unjust is bound to make the people suffer more. As such it needs to be withdrawn,” Mr. Tarigami said in the letter.
The power purchase agreement between RHPCL and the J&K Power Development Corporation with Rajasthan Urja Vikas and IT Services Limited is for a period of 40 years.
Referring to the shortage of electricity in J&K, Mr. Tarigami pointed to the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan. “The IWT remains a bottleneck and does not allow J&K to harness the potential of water resources to optimum because it has to use only the run of river water resources. Therefore, the constraint is on storage capacity. It cannot go beyond 13 lac acres of irrigation capacity building, that is, the ceiling,” Mr. Tarigami’s letter said.
Mr. Tarigami said the IWT’s constraints are only for J&K because three rivers flow through the Union Territory. “Pakistan is compensated by three [rivers] flowing through J&K [—] Jhelum, Sindh and Chenab [—] as against the other three rivers, Ravi, Sutlej and Bias flowing through Punjab and India take full benefit as per treaty provisions,” he added.
The CPI(M) leader underlined that the water resources being used by the National Hydropower Corporation Limited (NHPCL) for hydropower generation in any State is subject to the norm that the State concerned is entitled to 10% free power from producing corporation or agency.
“But this norm is not ipso facto applicable to J&K because those States are not subject to IWT bottlenecks. Therefore, J&K is entitled to separate treatment and special dispensation, that is, at least 40 percent free power rather than present 10 percent by producing agency,” Mr. Tarigami stated.
He asked the Central government to compensate J&K on a perennial basis with 400 MWs of power out of the Central pool to compensate for the opportunity cost.
