This meeting follows the new hydel power policy announced by the Ministry late last month. The Ministry is now keen to push ahead with hydel power and is supplementing the policy by sorting out all the pending problems in this sector. In fact, even the Standing Committee on Energy is taking a close look at the hydel sector and will be visiting Jammu and Kashmir and the North East to take stock of the situation.

The Chandigarh meeting is important because it aims to give big push to hydel power in the North. The problems have been awaiting a solution for many years now as no one gotaround to solving them. Among the issues to be discussed is offering partnership status to the UT of Chandigarh in the Bhakra Beas Project. Another tricky issue is the inter-state power sharing agreement which was signed in the mid-80s. The states now want a review of the agreement.

The fate of two large hydel projects also hangs by this meeting. The 800 MW Kol Project and the 2051 MW Parbati Project, both in Himachal have not moved forward because of problems between the partner states.

The Kol Dam project located in Bilaspur District was set up in the mid-80s as a partnership between the Himachal Pradesh Government and the Rajasthan Government. It was to have four units of 200 MW each and the cost was to shared between HP and Rajasthan in the ratio of 75:25. The initial share of investment of Rajasthan was Rs 45 crore, but it could invest only Rs 1.6 crore. After much delay, the Himachal Government asked that the entire project be handed over to it. This involves rescindment of the memorandum ofunderstanding between the two Government. Now the modalities of handing over the project and the rescindment have to be thrashed out by the states and the Union Government.

The Parbati Project based in Kullu is a tougher nut to crack. The 2051 MW project was set up in 1992, and is promoted by five states. The shares of the state are different. While Rajasthan has the highest (40 per cent), others are lesser with Haryana at 25 per cent, Gujarat and Delhi at 15 per cent each and Himachal with five per cent.

Now the problems is that Himachal wants its stake to be raised from five per cent to 25 per cent. This would involve changing the entire pattern of the agreement. The other states do not want to give more stake to Himachal, and therefore the issue has been deadlocked for some years.

The project has to be completed in three phases of 705 MW, 800 MW and 501 MW. Its cost has been estimated at Rs 6,637 crore based on 1996 prices. Unless the issue is resolved soon, the project will suffer and the costs willcontinue to rise.