The Hindu Business Line : Sikkim’s Teesta hydel project almost ready

Power drive
Japanese technicians setting up 3 turbines, training Indian counterparts.
Project to produce 510 MW of power, of which Sikkim will get 12%.
Govt plans to sell surplus power to the national grid.

Sarikah Atreya

Gangtok, Aug. 31 Sikkim’s first mega hydel power project on the Teesta River will soon begin producing power and lighting up homes across the country.

The 510-MW Teesta Hydro Power Project Stage V, located at Dikchu and Sirwani near Singtam in East Sikkim, is almost ready and is scheduled to be commissioned from December.

Final stages of the work is being done at the powerhouse site at Dipudara, where Japanese technicians from Toshiba are setting up three turbines and also training their Indian counterparts.

With a capacity of 170 MW each, the turbines will be dependent on water availability. To start with, one turbine will function.

The waters of the Teesta River will be diverted from the Dikchu dam site through an 18-km tunnel to feed the Dipudara powerhouse.

Work on the mega project commenced in 2001, after nearly three decades of technical, socio-economic and environmental feasibility studies and preparations followed by clearance from the Central Government.

Production plan

The project will produce 510 MW of power, of which Sikkim will get a share of 12 per cent.

The Sikkim Government plans to sell the surplus power to the national grid.

Talking to Business Line, Mr Subhash Roy, Executive Director, National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), said, “All the project components will be completed by December 2007 and the first turbine will start turning by Ja nuary 2008. The other two turbines of 170 MW capacities will be commissioned sequentially on February-March 2008.”

A spokesman of the corporation said, “We have almost finished the works on the dam and the powerhouse. Only the tunnelling work is in the last stage of completion.”

The spokesman said that the power generated would be sent to the eastern power grid based in West Bengal, from which the power supply will be distributed.

Major beneficiary States will be Bihar, Sikkim, West Bengal, and Orissa. The estimated cost of the project after its completion is Rs 2,198.04 crore.

Jobs for the locals

As per the MoU signed with the Sikkim Government, the NHPC has also planned to give jobs to 800 local people, both skilled and semi-skilled.

Meanwhile, 16 local youth on Thursday were given permanent jobs in the Teesta Stage V project.

With this the total number of people given permanent jobs under the Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy has gone up to 60.

In the first phase in 2004, 44 persons were provided employment.

Mr Roy said that with the appointment of these people, “NHPC had fulfilled its promise of providing permanent employment to all the affected land owners during the construction of Teesta Stage-V Project.”