Nagaland Congress slams government over power outages

DIMAPUR: The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) on Wednesday said that the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government has done nothing but pass the buck to sort out the power crisis in Nagaland its nearly 10 years in power. The government does not even have money to buy power from Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL), it said.
Demanding immediate steps to overcome the crisis, NPCC resolved it will launch a statewide public protest from June 6 if the situation does not improve.
"The DAN government has not only miserably failed to relieves us from the scorching heat, but also caused colossal economic loss to the state due to power shortage," it said. NPCC said the power situation in Nagaland can be best be termed as 'tormenting'. Pointing out that Nagaland has a potential to generate 1,000MW of hydro power, NPCC said the installed capacity in this sector as on March 2010 is a meager 28.7MW. As of March 2010, Nagaland had a total installed power generation capacity of 103.2MW - owned by the state and Centre. The capacity comprised 53.3MW of hydroelectric power plants and a thermal power plant when complete is expected to provide about 21.2MW, the NPCC said adding, power from renewable sources has an installed capacity of just 28.7MW.