Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday called for including Hydropower projects (HPPs) above 25 MW in the renewable energy category to grant them the benefits to other renewable energy projects.

Addressing the Chief Ministerial Plenary session during 2nd Global REINVEST Renewable Energy Investor’s Meet, Thakur welcomed investors to invest in Himachal in hydropower and solar energy sectors.

“The government in Himachal is entrepreneur friendly and providing various facilities to encourage them in order to become partners in the growth of energy sector,” he said.

He said the state had immense hydel potential and the government immediately after coming to power took a decision to include hydropower sector into tourism.

Now the hydropower reservoirs of the state were being developed for hydro tourism.

Enlisting the major entrepreneur friendly measures being offered by the government, the CM said that the rates of upfront premium while allotting projects had been reduced from Rs 20 lakh to mere one lakh per megawatt. Further the land lease rates for hydropower projects were as less as one rupee per square metre.

He said the initial 12 years royalty of the state government from allotted projects other than those which were already generating power, had been deferred and could be collected during next 28 years.

12 per cent free power would be collected evenly during contract period in case of projects allotted in future.

“Himachal has also addressed the main concern of power producers regarding selling of power and HP State Electricity Board would purchase power at a fixed rate from all hydropower projects up to 25 MW,” he said.

Thakur said electricity rates which were fixed from the date of agreement implementation would now be fixed from commercial operation date.

Hydropower projects generate green energy which was eco friendly, if this demand was fulfilled then more investors would be attracted to the state and economy would be strengthened further, he added.

Thakur said the government was keen about promoting solar power projects also in the state as 1000 MW solar park had been already identified in Spiti area and various projects with capacity of 200 MW were also proposed for near future. Solar energy policy had also been framed and keeping in view, the fragile ecology of the hill state, the government was promoting only green and clean energy and at present 90 percent of the utilized energy was clean.

The government had also banned setting up of thermal power houses, he added.

Himachal had a total hydro power tapping potential of 27,000 MW which was one fourth of the entire country and 10,547 MW had been already tapped through 151 projects.

In addition to this, 63 projects with a capacity of 2395 MW were under construction, 770 projects with a capacity of 8000 MW had been allocated whereas small and big projects worth 2100 MW capacity would be allocated soon.