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`No power crisis by 2007'

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, AUG. 3 . The Chairman and Managing Director of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and the Narmada

Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC), Yogendra Prasad, today said that there would be no electricity crisis in Madhya Pradesh by 2007 as the Indira Sagar dam, along with the other downstream projects on the Narmada, would produce enough power to meet the State's demand for electricity.

Mr. Prasad was addressing a press conference here to mark the fourth Foundation Day of NHDC, a joint venture of NHPC and the Government of Madhya Pradesh. NHDC was set up on August 1, 2000, to construct, operate and maintain the 1000-MW Indira Sagar Project and the 520-MW Omkareshwar Project on the Narmada on an ownership basis.

The target was to complete the Indira Sagar in five years and Omkareshwar in seven years.

He said that the Indira Sagar project would be completed well before the scheduled target. He said that it would be wrong to project that the human touch had been missing on the part of the NHDC when it came to relief and rehabilitation of the people being displaced by the Indira Sagar dam. He said the people of Harsud town in Khandwa district had two

options. The NHDC was prepared to save Harsud from submergence by building a special dam but it was early last year that the people themselves opted for compensation and said with one voice that they would like to leave Harsud. He said that the NHDC has been paying money to the State Government for relief and rehabilitation (R&R) purposes on a priority basis but the State Government on its part has not been prompt in accepting these funds. He said that only about 500- odd people have chosen to settle at New Harsud while most of the Harsud people took the compensation and went to many different places to settle down.

Briefing newspersons on this occasion, the Chief Executive Director of the NHDC, S.K. Dodeja, said that five units of the Indira Sagar Project have been commissioned in a record time of less than seven months from January to July this year. This is eight to eleven months ahead of schedule and is a record for NHDC,NHPC and BHEL. The remaining three units of this project are scheduled for commissioning during the current financial year.

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