Record premium for four hydel projects in Uttarakhand

WWI-RRE, a Delhi-based consortium, would pay an upfront premium of Rs 1.27 crore per Mw, considered to be the highest in the country, to win a contract for building four hydel projects with a total capacity of 23.25 Mw in Nayar Valley in Uttarakhand.

This has brought cheers to the state government especially at the time of current global meltdown.

The consortium is led by R R Energy (RRE) Ltd and Worlds Window Impex (WWI) Pvt Ltd, which together had bid for the 17-Mw Nayar dam, 2-Mw Santudhar-I, 2-Mw Santudhar-II and 2.25-Mw Biyali Gaon — all on Nayar river — which is a tributary of the river Ganga in Pauri district of the hill state, official sources said.

The Uttarakhand Infrastructure Projects Company (UIPC) Ltd, a joint venture between IL&FS and the state government, has finalised the bidding process.

Nine companies were selected in the final bidding process, but WWI-RRE won the contract for paying the highest upfront premium. The state government will get over Rs 29 crore for this project. The companies that participated in the bidding process include ACC, Bhilwara group and Nagarjun cement.

An investment of Rs 200 crore has been proposed in the four projects, which can together generate 98 million units.

The biggest among the four is the Nayar Small Hydroelectric Project near Marora village in Pauri district, having 3 turbines-generating units, each of 5.66 Mw. Annual generation from the dam, which will be built at a cost of Rs 129.58 crore, is likely to touch 69.56 million Kwh.

The letter of award for the contract would shortly be sent to the consortium.

The hallmark of the four projects is that they will be constructed not very faraway from one-another, on different steps of the river, flowing in a cascading manner. The projects will be constructed within a period of two years, and six months after the signing of the implementation agreement and will be built under the new power policy, which was announced early this year. The policy envisages participation of panchayats and villagers in the projects.