Hydro, renewable power push for UTs

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 1

The allocations for the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh remain unchanged at Rs 35,581.44 crore and Rs 5,958 crore, respectively, for financial year 2023-24 in comparison to the current financial year as Rs 9,486.13 crore has be allocated to the former to meet the resource gap shown in the revised estimate for 2022-23 and a maximum of Rs 3,487.56 crore allocated to the latter as part of the UT’s Tribal Area Component.

According to the data under the expenditure budget head, bulk of the allocations to J&K — to the tune of Rs 33,923 crore — is given as central assistance. As much as Rs 130 crore has been earmarked as grants towards equity contribution for 624 MW Kiru Hydroelectric Project. Another Rs 476.44 crore has been given to meet equity contribution for implementation of 850 MW Ratle Hydropower Project and Rs 500 crore for Jhelum Tavi Flood Recovery Project (JTFRP).

In case of Ladakh, besides allocation for the UT for expenditure under different heads, in her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced a transmission line project to evacuate 13,000 MW of renewable energy with central support of Rs 8,300 crore and a total project cost of Rs 20,700 crore.

The Finance Minister said, “The inter-state transmission system for evacuation and grid integration of 13 GW renewable energy from Ladakh will be constructed with an investment of Rs 20,700 crore including central support of Rs 8,300 crore.”

She announced this project as part of the government’s seven priority sectors. This renewable energy transmission line project was put under the “green growth” priority sector through which the government aims to make a green transition across major sectors of the economy.

The green energy transmission corridor is being planned between Pang in Ladakh and Kaithal in Haryana and is likely to span 900 km.

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