(LiveMint)
India plans to as much as quintuple development of hydroelectric power in Jammu and Kashmir. The local government is planning to add more than 5,000 megawatts of power using the flow of its rivers within the next five to six years, according to Nirmal Kumar Singh, the state’s deputy chief minister and minister for the power-development department.
While neighbouring Pakistan has expressed concerns about potential water shortages that might result, Singh said he doesn’t expect the hydro plans to create friction between the two nuclear-armed powers.
“There were a lot of bottlenecks which we have cleared now,” Singh said last week in an interview at his residence in Jammu, the winter capital of the state. “I don’t see a reason for dispute with Pakistan on these projects.
