New Delhi, Nov. 4: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?s ambitious plan to set up a Tennessee Valley Authority-type agency in the Northeast for effectively tackling the twin menaces of flood and erosion and tapping hydel power has run into rough weather with Arunachal Pradesh refusing to give consent to the project.

The Union water resources ministry had started working on the plan last year soon after Singh voiced his willingness for such an institution in the region. According to plans by the ministry, the Brahmaputra Board is to be restructured and named the North East Water Resources Authority with greater financial and administrative autonomy for which a bill will have to be tabled in Parliament.

Since water is a state subject, the consent of all the states in the region would be necessary to usher in the changes.

Arunachal Pradesh?s apprehension over the scheme stems from the Centre?s earlier ?conduct? in the power projects that had been planned for the hill state. Some ministers are of the view that PSUs such as the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) have been given greater authority in managing the projects instead of the state government.

The hill state has presumed that once the water authority is established, the state government?s power would be further eroded and it would be forced to approve ?gigantic? schemes that would benefit other states like Assam, but endanger the lives of the indigenous population.

?The state cabinet recently took a decision that it was too premature to give the green signal to an authority that would encompass the entire region. We are concerned that the state government?s power to take decisions could be curtailed if such a thing (the authority) was allowed to happen,? chief minister Gegong Apang said. He added that ascertaining the people?s opinion was necessary before the nod could be given to the ambitious project.

That the hill state would create hurdles was indicated a few months ago when it infor-med the Centre that it would allow only run-of-the-river pr-ojects instead of storage dams since it could not afford displa-cing the people and destroying the state?s fragile ecology.

The Tennessee Valley Authority was created in 1933 as an independent government corporation in the US. It has so far built four dams and has successfully initiated programmes for the proper use of water resources, conservation and preservation of land resources, and a more widespread use of electrical power. But efforts to replicate the system in India through the Damodar Valley Corporation have not met with resounding success.