Itanagar, (Samajweekly) The Arunachal Pradesh government on Wednesday signed an MoU with the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) to explore feasibility of harnessing geothermal potentials that the state’s numerous hot springs offer.
Officials said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Repo Ronya, Secretary, Science and Technology Department, and Rajinder Bhasin, Technical Expert, NGI, Norway, in the presence of Chief Minister Pema Khandu and other dignitaries, including officials from the Norwegian Embassy in Delhi.
The Chief Minister said that it’s a right step towards green and clean energy production, especially in the light of global warming concerns.
“It’s a great coincidence that this MoU is being signed on World Tourism Day (September 27) as its theme this year is ‘Tourism and Green Investment’ that perfectly goes in tandem with this new initiative,” Khandu said.
“Many of the hot springs are located in the mountainous areas where generators run on fossil fuel for electricity and heating. These can be replaced by geothermal energy with no CO2 emissions,” he said.
Bhasin, who visited a few places in West Kameng, said the state has tremendous potential for development of infrastructure to make it one of the best tourism states in the country.
“I have worked for about a decade in Bhutan and I thought Bhutan was the ultimate. But visiting Arunachal Pradesh for the first time, I realised that I was wrong all the time. This is heaven,” he said.
The intention of this MoU is to provide a facilitating mechanism for the two parties to work together on mutually agreed, progressive and supportive activities, aiming for further development in the field of Geotechnics and Rock Engineering by dealing with complex sub-surface geological and geotechnical issues faced by the state.
To begin with, NGI will carry out geological, geochemical and geothermal investigation of few selected geothermal sites in Tawang and West Kameng districts that will include MT Survey to decipher the deeper geoelectrical configuration of geothermal springs (hot-springs) and feasibility to utilise the Geothermal Energy resources for further use.
