Mumbai, Nov 3 : The Maharashtra government on Monday signed MoU for an investment of Rs 8,000 crore with GSC PSP Maha Private Limited Company for the Panchmauli-Dewalipada Pumped Hydropower Project in Dhule/Nandurbar.

The MoU was inked in the presence Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The Chief Minister said that the state government will set up a 'fast-track' mechanism to ensure that investors in the Pumped Hydropower Project get all other licenses, including water use and environmental clearances quickly.

About 2,500 jobs will be created through this project which will have an installed power capacity of 1,500 MW.

The project will require approximately 19.29 TMC of water for initial water storage and 3.24 TMC of water for annual replenishment. It is expected that the revenue from the water recharge schemes will be around Rs 1,762.21 crore at industrial rate for the first recharge and around Rs 1,128.32 crore for the annual recharge, said the government release.

CM Fadnavis said that Maharashtra will benefit greatly from the geographical conditions conducive to implementing pumped storage projects in the state, especially in the Sahyadri mountain ranges.

"Therefore, the state government has also decided to accelerate the pumped storage projects (PSP) policy to stabilize the power grid. A target has been set to develop pumped storage projects with a capacity of about 1,00,000 MW for grid stability. Through this, the capacity will be created to stabilise not only Maharashtra but also the national power grid,' he noted.

'Maharashtra is now creating a new history in the field of solar energy. The state government has undertaken the largest solar energy project in Asia, through which an initiative will be implemented to shift the entire energy requirement of the agricultural sector to solar energy. This project will create a distributed solar energy capacity of 16,000 MW. Due to this project, the power supply required for agriculture will be based on solar energy, thereby reducing the dependence on traditional energy sources to a large extent,' said the Chief Minister.

According to the Chief Minister, with these solar energy and Pumped Hydropower projects, Maharashtra will become a leader in the field of renewable energy in the country, and the state will move towards environment-friendly and sustainable energy generation, the Chief Minister also said on this occasion.

Water resources department additional chief secretary Deepak Kapoor said that so far the government has signed MoUs for 50 Pumped Hydropower Projects and necessary steps are being taken to implement these MoUs expeditiously. He added that 70,315 MW of electricity is expected to be generated through 51 projects, which will result in an investment of Rs 3.83 lakh crore and the creation of 1,13,990 manpower jobs.

/IANS