Hydropower, in addition being renewable, economical, non-polluting and environmentally benign source of energy, also have the inherent ability for instantaneous starting, stopping, load variations, etc. and help in improving reliability of the power system. Furthermore, there is no escalation in cost during the life of the station as it utilises water as source for generation which is non inflationary in nature. The need for its accelerated development also comes from its capability of enhanced system reliability and economics of utilization of resources with lowering cost of generation over a period of time. Despite of having so many advantages of hydropower, actual capacity addition and growth of hydropower projects is meagre. Although in India, allotment of hydro projects are being done under faster and speedy manner to public sector undertakings and private developers, yet actual growth in capacity addition is way behind than the allotment of projects by government to project developers. This can be attributed to:
Forfeiture of large number of hydro projects due to the financial as well as technical non-feasibility that arise because of lack of reliable data availability and over demanding competitive bidding quotations, Halting of Project in development stage due to various administration bottlenecks like clearances and R & R issues, Problem of sufficient finance arrangement because of higher gestation period and long loan repayment period.
Water being State Subject, in addition to detailed power policy formulated by central agencies, state governments also have their separate policies related to allotment, execution and revenue sharing. Though State Governments facilitate to nurture the speedy development of hydropower in their respective States, yet, the policy framework of State requires detailed study and understanding which are putting obstruction on techno-economical feasibility and speedy execution of hydropower projects.
