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PPP model will improve power sector infra: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday favoured Public Private Partnership(PPP) model in power sector and described renewable sources of energy as the answer to the country's growing power needs.

Inaugurating the 240-Megawatt Uri-II Hydro Electric Project (HEP) located near the Line of Control in Baramulla district of the northern Indian state Kashmir, he said renewable energy, including hydro power, is fast developing as an alternative to thermal power.

He cited the success of Bhutan in developing alternative sources of power as an example which ‘impressed’ him during his visit to the Himalayan kingdom last month. Modi also supported the PPP model to improve the power infrastructure of the country.

Taking a dig at the previous UPA government, he said had the issue of establishing transmission lines been taken up by it in right earnest, the situation would have been much better now.
‘The future of a country is bright if its people demand education. I am very happy to make this announcement,’ he said. The Prime Minister dedicated the power project to the nation in the presence of Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and top officials of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC).

This is the second power project on Jhelum river in Uri area and is located downstream of 480-MW Uri-I HEP, which is already operational. The Uri-II HEP has a concrete gravity dam which is 52-metre high and 157-metre long with four spillways of nine metres each. The 4.23-km head race tunnel carries water from the dam to the powerhouse, which has four units of 60 MW each designed to generate 1,124 million units of electricity in a year.

The work on the power project was completed in time despite a massive earthquake striking the area on 8 October, 2005, two weeks after Hindustan Construction Company started work on it.


Uri power project will benefit North India: Piyush Goyal

With the 240-MW Uri-II power plant becoming operational on Friday, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said the electricity generated here would benefit northern Indian states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the project, Goyal tweeted that he was ‘personally very excited about the project and the positive multiplier effects it will trigger’.
‘It will also provide much-needed power to Northern grid, giving relief to the common man in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Chandigarh,’ Goyal tweeted.
Congratulating state-run NHPC's team, Goyal said ‘the power generated will benefit Jammu and Kashmir immensely and give an impetus to the local economy and create employment for locals’.
Reminiscing his childhood experience of visiting a dam, he tweeted: ‘My last visit to a dam was in 1979, after my Class X exams, on a trip to Bhakra Nangal Dam with my father, Shri (sic) Vedprakash Goyal.’
A memorandum of understanding between the Centre and J&K was signed on 20 July, 2000 during the Vajpayee-led NDA regime.
The power project was to be completed in June last year, but the inauguration had to be postponed after NHPC found a lot of slit near head as well as at the rear tunnel during the mandatory pre-testing.
Uri-II will help NHPC to increase its power generation capacity to 1,920 MW from five projects in the state. The other four projects are 690-MW Salal, 480-MW Uri-I, 390-MW Dulhasti and 120-MW Sewa-II.
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