New Delhi: The Ministry of New and Energy ( ) has cancelled proposals submitted by 50-odd private companies seeking Central Financial Assistance (CFA) for their projects. The ministry has closed the files pertaining to 53 such projects on the back of non-compliance of provisions in their schemes. “It is further conveyed that no correspondence in this regard will henceforth be entertained, as the project developers had not submitted any progress report of their project execution after submission of application for providing CFA,” the ministry said in a communication to the companies. The 53 proposals with a combined capacity of 438 Mw were submitted for projects across multiple states. Some of the big companies whose project proposals stand cancelled as a result of the decision include Meenakshi Power, SRS Energy, Trident Power, Krishna Hydro Energy, Venika Hydro, Ramky Enviro subsidiary Chhatisgarh Energy Consortium. Small plants are those with power generation capacity of up to 25 Mw. India has an estimate potential of generating 20,000 Mw power from such projects. A bulk of this potential lies in the Himalayan states. The government is working on a plan to harness around a half of this capacity over the next decade. India’s Small Hydro Power (SHP) programme is mainly driven by the private sector investment. Under the programme CFA is provided for resource assessment and support for identification of new sites, setting up new projects, renovation and modernisation, development of water mills apart from R&D and human resource development.
India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has cancelled proposals for 20 small hydropower projects totalling 438 MW. The private developers had asked for Central Financial Assistance (CFA) backing, but the ministry cited non-compliance of provisions in the proposed schemes as the reason for cancellation. CFA provides support for finding and setting up schemes as part of India’s Small Hydro Power programme, supporting those with less than 25 MW capacity. India’s potential small hydro capacity is estimated to be 53 GW, with the government hoping to harness half that capacity within 10 years.