Touted as India’s largest private sector hydro-electric plant, the roads, cement, hotels, education, real estate to power conglomerate Jaiprakash Associates has had to sell its engineering jewels – the 1000 MW Karcham Wangtoo hydro plant on Satluj River and the 300 MW Baspa hydro plant on Baspa River in Himachal Pradesh to save the company which is heavily ridden with debt.
As demand for energy rises, so is technology and innovation fast changing the generation processes from fossil fuels to renewable sources.
Solar and wind energy costs a fraction of what it did a decade ago and are already impacting demand for oil, the price of which has crashed from over $ 100 a barrel to around $ 30 a barrel.
As electricity energy prices drop in India, the viability of such large projects as Karcham Wangtoo Project is increasingly being questioned for the large scale environmental damage they cause in pristine and fragile himalayan ecosystems.
At a time when the Jaypee Hydro projects in Himachal Pradesh have been sold to JSW Energy, it would be a time to reflect at building this giant project, as recorded in this documentary.
