The Union Ministry of Power, on 23 May 2006, released guidelines for development of hydropower projects in the country. While ProjectsToday is in the process of securing the comprehensive guidelines, the following is a gist.

The guidelines..............

• call for use of the SPV model by state governments and implementing agencies for expeditious development of large hydroelectric power projects in the country.

• envisage that the SPVs work independently to reach a stage where major tie-ups, statutory clearances and linkages are in place for project construction to take off.

• call for the need to build storage reservoirs as India's per capita storage capacity for water is among the lowest in the world.

• recommend that large storage capacity dams be taken up by private sector players only through MoUs with PSUs and government agencies.

• suggest that the selection of project developers should be done on the basis of tariff-based bidding.

• emphasize the need for government intervention to tie up transmission requirements for privately developed projects, and also co-ordination with power purchasers.