More than merely a power company, NJHEP has come to embody SJVN’s value system. This is a corporation dedicated to ethical practices and to social responsibility, using its business ventures to open up the landlocked hinterland to economic and social hope and aspiration, helping agricultural and industrial productivity, providing gainful employment to local workers, skilled and unskilled, allowing them to essential facilities such as schools and hospitals.

It is this value system that SJVN has carried to its next big project, the 412 mw Rampur Hydro Electric Project (RHEP), which is a run of the river project and will use the tail race waters of the NJHEP. Construction for RHEP, located in Shimla district, has commenced and the project is expected to be commissioned by 2012. 

In the 12th Five Yesr Plan, SJVN will also complete the Luhri Hydro Electric Projects in Himachal Pradesh and the Devsari, Naitwar Mori and Jakhol Sankri Hydro Electric Projects in Uttaranchal. A project in Sikkim is in the pipeline. By the end of the 11th plan, SJVN aims to be a 4, 000 mw company.

SJVN’s commitment to ethical business practices has been recognized. In 2003-04, it was awarded the “Gold Award” for outstanding achievement in “Safety Practices” by the Greentech Foundation, New Delhi. In 2004, it received the Golden Peacock Eco-innovation Award at the World Environment Congress. SJVN has also been awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification for quality management systems at the Nathpa Jhakri power station, as well as the ISO 14001 certification for environment, relief and safety.

SJVN is proud of having executed a highly efficient and effective resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) programme. So successful has been its R&R effort that an independent impact assessment audit conducted by the Agro-Economic research Centre of the Himachal Pradesh University found that, between 1996 and 2002, the literacy rate in the NJHEP zone had risen from 58 to 73 percent, average annual income per household had gone up from Rs. 29,114 to Rs. 104,640 and the percentage of families living below the poverty line had fallen from 25.6 to 16.8.