The history of providing consultancy services by the Central Board of Irrigation & Power is as old as its inception since the year 1927. This could be ascertained from the fact that not only the projects, requiring under the rules, to be submitted to the Govt, of India (GOI) were to be referred to a subcommittee of the Board, but it was opened to any provincial govt, to ask for a subcommittee (of the Board) to advise on any difficult technical question connected with the irrigation project under preparation even though the project might not require, under the rules to be submitted to the Govt, of India.

The Central Board of Irrigation (now Central Board of Irrigation & Power) was created with the very objective of, not only, enabling the provincial governments to obtain a second opinion in regard to irrigation projects, but also to give the Govt, of India authoritative advise in regard to the settlement of disputes between provinces arising out of the claims to the same source of supply. The consulting engineer to the Govt, of India and all the Chief Engineers for irrigation in the provinces were members of the Board. The Board worked through subcommittees consisting of those engineers with recent experience of works akin to those to be discussed. These subcommittees would be convened by GOI at the instance of local govt, concerned when a new project was about to be sanctioned or when a province found itself in difficulty for any technical matter. The constitution of the Central Board of Irrigation resulted in the benefit of the experience gained in one province being placed at the disposal of other provinces.

Hence, the fore-goings give us clear indications of the extent to which the job of providing consultancy by the Board has been given importance and since inception, it has been very closely involved giving recommendations for all technical matters of various irrigation projects of the country.

At present also consultancy is one of the thrust areas of CBIP and it undertakes consultancy jobs in various areas such as Power, Water Recourses and Renewable Energy. CBIP has a strong knowledge base including database of various case studies, a good collection of books in its Library, a strong base of its own updated technical manuals on various thurst areas along with a layer of very senior in-house officers and a strong base of more than 3000 members in the rank of Chief Engineers and above from reputed organizations (public & private) having rich and in-depth experience in various sub disciplines of these sectors i.e. Generation (hydro & thermal), Transmission, Distribution, Renewable, Irrigation, RCC dams Technology, Rock mechanics, Geosynthetics, Training, the man power planning etc.

It is quite capable of providing consultancy services to various utilities & organizations as per their requirements on various broad based and challenging issues. Some of the indicative areas where CBIP provides consultancy are indicated below:

Identification of hydro projects in states and clearance of PFR's & DPR's for Hydro Power and Thermal Power Projects

• Manpower planning, training need assessment and Development of Training Schedule for O&M personnel.

• Technical auditors of Hydro & Thermal Power Projects.

• Preparation of operation and maintenance manuals

•  Recruitment of technical and non technical staff for power and water recourses projects on turnkey basis.

• Preparation of DPR/setting and establishment of training institute in any discipline of power sector.

•  Consultancy for setting up Solar Power Plants   

CBIP being a think tank, with a back up support of experts in each narrow area of the three aforesaid sectors. CBIP also acts as guide to educational institutes, professionals for problem solving.

CBIP also provides free consultancy to the students.tudents.

In the recent past, CBIP has provided consultancy services to TATAs, KPCL, WPC Australia, APSEB, TNEB, IREDA, India Canada Environment Facility (ICEF), CPRI, US Hydro Power Council for International Development, PTC India Ltd., Indraprastha Power Generation Company Ltd. (IPGCL)/Pragati Power Company Ltd., Tenughat Vidyut Nigam Ltd. (TVNL), DTL etc.