Energy deficient Ladakh region is getting massive government investment in power sector, which will lower the ecologically fragile region’s reliance on polluting diesel-generated power. A Kashmir Life report.
Decades of candle lit dinners are about to end in Ladakh, J&K’s Shangri la that now gets more high-spending foreign visitors than Srinagar. While NHPC’s twin small hydropower projects are slated to go into generation early next year, New Delhi has approved a Rs 473 crore renewable energy initiative. Now the Prime Minister wants the arid desert linked with the national grid.
Against a demand of around 85-MWs, the actual availability from all sources is not more 20-MWs and over half of it comes from expensive diesel generators. The installed capacity of the tiny hydropower stations is only 7.80-MWs. Conservative estimates suggest that power development department, army and other appendages of the government are burning kerosene worth Rs 1200 crores a year for lighting purposes alone which has a huge impact on region’s fragile ecology.
Hindustan Construction Corporation (HCC) is setting up NHPCs twin project – Rs 611 crores 45-MW Nimo Bazgo (Leh) and Rs 621.27 crores 44-MW Chuttak (Kargil). Sources in the hydropower major said against the cumulative expenditure of Rs 1232.27 crores, they have already spent Rs 840.18 crores. Right now the power giant is chasing a deadline of September 2010 for the Leh project and February 2011 for the Kargil project.
J&K government had transferred the two projects to the NHPC for implementation in July 2000. The respective detailed project reports (DPR) term them “90 percent dependable year” projects with Chuttak generating 216.41 million units (MU) and Nimo Bazgo 239.33 MUs annually. State would get 12 percent of the generations as royalty and will have first right to purchase on the balance generation at market rates. Given the low pondage levels and massive fall in the availability of water, officials accept that the two projects will do no wonders. Admitting that the per unit costs are going to be exorbitant officials said the NHPC  is arranging “some subordinate loans” to reduce the tariff. “The tariff may or may not go down but it would definitely make some savings on account of generating current by burning kerosene that costs quite heavily in the region,” one official said. Pakistan Indus Water Commission is keen to visit the sites this summer.
The two projects were implemented after diverting funds that the central government had set aside for connecting Ladakh with the national grid. It required a Rs 300 crore investment when the idea was conceived in 1998 with NDA in power. Estimates got revised to Rs 450 crores in 2002 and to Rs 634 crore in 2006 when it was shelved on the request of Ladakh leaders.
The project, then a property of the state’s Power Development Department, was to be implemented through PGCIL for the entire 375-Km 220 KV Srinagar-Leh power transmission line. It envisaged underground cabling for 8.50 kilometres covering the Zojila pass and four 220/33 KV sub-stations at, Drass, Kargil, Khaltsi and Leh. As the first instalment of Rs 120 crores was transferred to the PGCIL, the leaders from Leh approached the central government seeking implementation of the twin power projects. They averred that having a transmission line is useless as long as there is no generation in Ladakh for transmission.
Interestingly, Planning Commission had then opposed the idea of having the twin power stations for reasons other than the projects generating the most expensive energy (over Rs 10 a unit). “In view of the restriction imposed by the Indus Water Treaty no pondage is allowed on river Indus. As a result of this, the generation will drop down to less than one third of the installed capacity during winter due to low discharge in the river,” the Planning Commission had said. It added that even after commissioning of these projects it will be necessary to make alternative arrangements to meet the power requirement of the people during winter. Therefore, the Commission had pleaded to take up the 132 KV transmission line up to Leh. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had also advocated spending money in laying the transmission line in view of the high tariff of the twin micro power projects. But the CCEA overruled both the institutions and obliged the region.
Now when the twin projects are about to get ready, the requirement of a transmission line is being felt. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh announced during his recent visit to Srinagar that the region will get connected with the national grid. Sources in the government said the project can take around three years. It is expected to cost over Rs 900 crores as the survey and the DPRs have already been drafted. Now when the central government is reviving the project it is not immediately known who will own it.
Already the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah has approved a Rs 473 crore initiative for the region. Its implementation has already started and will complete by December, 2013, and expected to result in a saving of about 20 million litres of diesel per year.
The plan envisages 30 micro hydro power projects aggregating to 23.5 MW capacity, setting up of about 300 SPV (Solar Photo-Voltaic) power plants of 5-100 KW capacity, 2000 SPV home lighting systems and about 40,000 solar thermal systems such as water heating, solar cookers, solar passive buildings, solar green houses.
Under the project Rs 266 Cr will go for setting up the micro hydropower plants and the rest in providing Solar PV Plants of capacity 40-50 KW each. Across the region there will be 120 institutions having solar power of 5-10 KW capacity. By 2013, 5500 Green Houses will be constructed and 25000 sq mt of solar collector area will be created for servicing the solar thermal heaters in Ladakh. The solar greenhouses proposed to be set up in the region would help in increasing the production of vegetables in winters for the region, which are otherwise procured from far off places, officials said.
The project was formally launched last week (June 15) with the active involvement of the two autonomous hill development councils in Leh and Kargil, the Leh based 14-corps and the ITBP. The ministry has prepared the DPRs for the SPVs and tendering has also started. The companies will also have to enter into maintenance contracts even as the twin LAHDCs will be the overall owners of the projects. Army has identified 10 places for setting up of solar power and solar thermal plants of 100 Kilo Watts each and at present the physical verification of such places has been going on. ITBP is keen to make use of solar power and thermal plants at some of its company headquarters and border outposts (BOPs).
Well before the government, a chain of NGOs funded by Western charities have given a sound foundation to the concept of renewable energy. From Students For Change, an American charity, to Solar Electricity Light Fund (SELF), there are countless NGOs working on this front. But the LEDeG (Ladakh Ecological Development Group), an NGO working since 1983 is credited for introducing the photovoltaic system in the region.
The SELF in collaboration with Students For Change, a US based charity, is working on the development of a computer center in the Sonamling settlement of Ladakh – that is home to almost half of over 8,000-Tibetan refugees since 1950 – that would be powered by solar power along with satellite Internet hook up. This is part of the effort to expand the economic base of the refugees in this remote part of the world.
LEDeG that has its office – lighting systems, computers, fax machines and video systems – powered by its 960-watt solar photovoltaic plant, has already set up a 100-kilowatt solar plant that enlightens 10 of the district’s 112 villages. TATA BP Solar and the Ladakh Renewable Energy Development Agency (LREDA) are executing another project to electrify 80 villages with a target to set up a 25-kilowatt power plant in Leh.
There are many successful cases in which the solar energy is being used to warm houses, cook food, run faxes and computers, and at least in one case, to power water pump. LEDeG has devised Trombe (solar) walls and direct gain system for solar space heating.
Using the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), the state government had already decided to set up two solar energy units of five MWs each at Nubra (Leh) and Zanaskar (Kargil) at the cost of Rs 120 crores.

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