Remit Hydro Limited, an HIDCL subsidiary registered for the purpose, is likely to apply at the DoED for selecting a suitable project within a week or two.

“We will be selecting a suitable project from the government basket first,” said HIDCL Chief Executive Officer Deepak Rauniyar, without naming any potential projects. “An application for licence will be submitted at the earliest.”

Rauniyar also indicated at their willingness to work on a project whose development had been initiated but stopped later for various reasons. Remit Hydro Limited, the subsidiary company under HIDCL, will be developing projects with capacity of up to 150MW.

The HIDCL has said that it will be making 51 percent investment in the project, 24 percent of the investment will come from the migrant workers, 10 percent from the local people where project site is situated and the remaining 15 percent of the funding will be raised through initial public offering (IPO).

“From what we have gathered, we feel we can go for project costing as high as Rs 20 billion,” Rauniyar said.  

To ensure adequate funds from the migrant workers for the project, the HIDCL plans to come up with a scheme under which the migrant workers can buy project shares by paying in Equated Monthly Installment (EMI).

The company is yet to chart out details of the scheme, though.

With assurance of certain returns on investment, unlike the government initiated Foreign Employment Bond to raise internal loan, and that of helping migrant workers to save money, the company is hopeful of raising adequate funds for the project on time. “We are sure this scheme will attract migrant workers to invest,” Rauniyar said.

It will be the first project to be initiated by the HIDCL on it own.

The company has so far funded eight hydropower projects and a cross-border transmission line project.