"The decision to go in for agitation will be taken in a day or two", NHPC officers association president AK Tewari said. NHPC is also sending representations to the prime minister and the power minister to intervene to withdraw the buy-out proposal that was announced in Mumbai on Tuesday by power minister PR Kumaramangalam. The deal will fetch Rs 4,500 crore to the national exchequer.

Sources added that the state of the ongoing projects will be in a jeopardy especially the Dulhasti (390mw), Teesta (510mw), Dhauli-ganga (280mw) and Chamera stage -2 (300mw).

There are 12,000 NHPC employees of which 1,500 are officers. The proposal had caught NHPC unawares.

The power minister had said on Wednesday that NTPC had already planned to enter the hydro power sector in a massive way, so this decision comes as a sequential step to its strategy. The deal would be more or less on the lines of the equity crossholding implemented early this year between oil PSUs, Indian oil Corporation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation,wherein reserves of cash rich psus were utilised to fight fiscal deficit.

Meanwhile, NTPC said modalities regarding acquisition of NHPC by the company would be taken after a formal decision by the Government. "One of the options now under consideration is transfer of Government equity of NHPC to NTPC and a decision on it would be taken only after a formal proposal was sent by the government," NTPC said in a statement here.