NHPC's ambitious Dibang Multipurpose Project for Indian Power Sector

by Psu Connect
Date: 05-02-22

In its journey of adding 22 hydropower plants with aggregate capacity of 6971 MW, NHPC has been a responsible corporate citizen and environmentally sensitive in all aspects of hydropower development & operation.

NHPC's ambitious Dibang Multipurpose Project for Indian Power Sector

New Delhi: NHPC through its hydropower projects across the country is dedicated in contributing towards achieving the renewable energy goals set by Government of India. Hydropower projects not only contribute towards India's energy security, but also ensure environment sustainability. In its journey of adding 22 hydropower plants with aggregate capacity of 6971 MW, NHPC has been a responsible corporate citizen and environmentally sensitive in all aspects of hydropower development & operation. Spearheading this effort is the upcoming 2880 MW Dibang Multipurpose Project in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Dibang Multipurpose Project will be instrumental in bringing overall prosperity to the region in terms of infrastructure development and socio-economic development apart from the green energy generation and flood moderation in the downstream areas of Arunachal Pradesh & Assam.

Forest clearance to Dibang Project was accorded after the requisite due diligence and fulfilling all the statutory requirements. It is also mentioned that the project does not encroach upon any national park in the region. In principle approval of Forest Clearance (FC-I) was granted by MoEF&CC, Govt. of India on 15.04.2015 under Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, wherein none of the banks of proposed reservoir have been stipulated to be a national park. Prior to FC-I, Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) constituted by Central Government considered the project for an additional Study to correlate power generation versus requirement of forestland. In this study, the optimal condition which was observed that when the height of Dam gets reduced by 10 m there is reduction in about 500 ha of Forest Land and 120 MW of power generation. Hence, the Dam Height of the Project was reduced by 10 m (from 288 m to 278 m) & Installed capacity from 3000 MW to 2880 MW to optimize Forest Land requirement from 5056.5 ha to 4577.84 ha.

In compliance to conditions of FC-I, NHPC deposited an amount of Rs. 628.68 cores in the State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) account in September 2019, towards Net Present Value (Rs. 380.08 crore), Compensatory Afforestation (Rs. 213.44 crore), Catchment Area Treatment Plan (Rs. 23.95 crore) and Wildlife Management Plan (Rs. 11.21 crore) and an additional sum of Rs. 211.5 Lakh towards Zonal Wildlife Conservation Plan (Rs. 152.19 lakh) and Alternate habitat/home for Avi-fauna (Rs. 59.31 lakh) in December 2019.

The final approval of Forest Clearance (FC-II) was issued by MoEF&CC on 12.03.2020 after submission of compliance report by the State Government as stipulated in FC-I. It is important to mention that the Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary and Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary are located about 14 Kms and 35 kms away from the reservoir periphery of the project respectively. Hence, no part of these sanctuaries will be affected either due to construction activities or due to submergence.

The Environment Management Plans along with the safeguard measures as stipulated in conditions of Forest Clearance will be implemented in collaboration with State Government and other expert agencies in due course of time once the project construction is started.