Indian National Hydropower Association

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Description

Indian National Hydropower Association (INHA), National Committee of International Hydropower Association (IHA), UK was created in June 2003 with an objective to provide a forum for exchange of views and enhancement of knowledge on various aspects relating to hydropower development in India. It advocates the interests & represents the views of the hydropower industry before Govt., bodies, state agencies, interest groups and key policy makers. During the last one year, your association has been very successful in meeting its objectives through the hard work put in by all its members. As we all are well aware that the first mega event organized by your association was an International Conference-cum-Exhibition INDIA HYDRO 2004 on "Accelerated Hydropower Development - Need of the Day" from 1st , 3rd March, 2004 at Hotel Le Meridian, New Delhi, India which was highly successful by all standards. The conference was first of its kind in India addressing crucial issue of the hydro sector. Success of the conference can very well be gauged by the participation of the National and International companies and hydro professionals which included more than 20 countries. The recommendations framed at the end of conference were presented to the government and it was assured that these would be given due consideration for providing further boost to the development of hydropower sector in the country. INHA has also introduced its Quarterly Bulletin "India Hydro" since Jan 2004. The Bulletin covers wide issues related to hydro sector and share views of the hydro professionals among its readers. The Bulletin has been well taken by the readers and this particular initiative is indeed going to be the strongest tool of the association to promote sustainable hydro power development in the country. INHA has also launched its website indiahydro.org which showcases the association's aims and objective, the rule & regulations of the association, membership details, status of hydropower development in the country and up coming event of the association. I am pleased to share with all our members that the overall response towards the association's activities and its working has been very positive. The membership base of the association in terms of new corporate and individual members joining hands is steadily increasing. As on date your association has 11 Corporate Members and 164 individual members. Association has recently started "New Membership Drive" to further enhance the number of corporate as well as individual memberships. The aim is to bring together all companies, societies and individuals linked with the hydro sector in the country under one umbrella and be the strongest unified voice of the hydro community. INHA has also worked on the proposal of giving honorary membership to eminent hydro professionals of the country so that their experience can be well utilized while addressing the core issue related to hydro sector and to provide more qualitative strength to the association. This will indeed be helpful in promoting the cause of hydro power development in the country and finding more realistic & acceptable solution to common concerns in this sector. The financial state of affair of the association has already been put forward to all the members. The accounts of the association are well maintained and thoroughly audited by the auditors. The auditor's report has also been circulated among the members. INHA has to transfer 50% of the Corporate Membership fee to the International Hydropower Association (IHA), which is the parent body as per the MOU signed with them. The Association's governing body is very serious about not letting any discrepancy while handling the account and following the rules and regulations of the societies act under with the association is registered. Full transparency and professional approach has been adopted to manage all the affairs of the association. The executive working group, which presently consists of 5 members, is looking after the working of the association. The current executive committee need to the expanded and the proposal in this regard will be put forward during current Annual General Meeting for consideration. The expansion will be done on the basis of expertise available within the association to handle the specific work areas and the individual's area of interest. The future activities of the association are to carefully planned and must reflect the association's concern about the current and future problems of the hydro sector. The next big event planned by the association is organizing a conference on Role of Pumped Storage and its Development in India. The venue and dates of the conference will be soon finalized. Apart form this, the governing body is also keen on establishing Permanent Committees within the association which will work on key issues related to hydro sector and will periodically submit its recommendations, which will be put forward to the policy makers of the country for due considerations. Association apart from this also intend to work on establishing a prestigious INHA prize, which will be given every year to eminent hydro professionals and organizations for their contribution towards promoting good practices in the hydro sector. A questionnaire in this regard will soon be finalized and the details of the prize will also be circulated among the members and general public. Electricity is crucial infrastructure input for economic development of this country and we are far lagging behind in terms of meeting the demand for quality power of the consumers in this country. In India which is endowed with hydro-potential of about 2,50,000 MW and ranked 5th in the world in terms of available hydro potential, there could not be other better option than of sustainable hydro power development in the country to meet the growing power demand and also bringing in qualitative improvement in the power supply. Government of India is keen on addressing the problems faced by the consumers of this country with regard to power sector and this has put India on the threshold of huge generation capacity addition specially through hydro electricity. Large number of mega hydro projects are under various stages of execution. The country presently has developed about 29500 MW of Hydropower capacities. There are further plans to add more than 35,000 MW by the year 2012. This indeed reflects the growth of hydro sector in this country and its brightening future. The association has to march ahead in line with the growth of the hydro sector and has to ensure that the planned capacity addition is achieved in the shortest possible time frame with most efficient design and state of the technological solutions to the technical and managerial issues. Once again I take this opportunity to re-emphasize the vital role that all power sector professionals have to play for strengthening the power sector of this country that will help to build up our nation stronger. All we require to achieve our target of providing reliable and quality power to this country is total commitment towards our assigned work and a pledge to serve this nation with sincerity and commitment. In the end I would like to convey, on behalf of the Governing body and my own behalf our earnest thanks to all individual members, corporate members and our sponsors for their valuable guidance and cooperation extended by them for strengthening the association. I thank all the members of the executive body for their indefatigable approach to take up the challenges and their contribution & support, which enabled the association to scale new heights and achieve excellent performance.