Secretary Ravinder Kumar reviews RoW concerns for Drass-Padum transmission line

LEH, June 14: Secretary Power and New-Renewable Energy, UT Ladakh, Ravinder Kumar chaired a meeting regarding Right of Way (RoW) issues in respect of the 220 KV Drass-Padum transmission line traversing through the jurisdiction of Taisuru, Drass, Sankoo and Zanskar tehsils of Kargil District.

Manager, Rural Electrification Corporation Power Distribution Company Limited (RECPDCL) informed the Secretary that the total length of the Drass Padum transmission line was 195 Km with a total of 673 towers. The executing agencies were taking up the project in full swing and a total of 147 foundations have been completed and 36 Nos tower erections were also completed. It was informed that the target for this working season is to complete 100% foundation and tower erection works in the transmission line.

RECPDCL informed that 223 towers were falling in private land in the Drass to Kochik, Kochik to Rangdum and Rangdum to Padum Sections of the transmission line. As per the Ministry of Power, Government of India guidelines, compensation of tower footing area and corridor is 85% and 15% respectively of the land value as determined by the District Magistrate/Circle rate, which estimates to be about ₹ 29.87 Cr. and requested to provide the sum for compensation to the private land falling in the transmission line. Further crop/tree compensation will be required for the transmission line traversing through such routes.

Secretary Kumar informed that necessary compensation will be provided to such land owners and demand for budget allocation has already been made for the same. He motivated the executing agencies to speed up the work and timely complete the project.

DC Kargil, Santosh Sukhadeve also assured the project executing agencies that all necessary support will be provided for the timely execution of the project which will benefit the grid connectivity of the Zanskar Region of Ladakh and will also help in realizing the renewable power generation potential of the region. Various committees have been already constituted to take care of the land and crop/tree compensation. 

The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioner / CEO LAHDC Kargil, Superintending Engineer PDD Ladakh, HOD Transmission RECPDCL (implementing agency), Manager RCPDCL, and head of various executing agencies of Tata Projects, L&T and RS Infraprojects.