The country's largest upper Tamakoshi hydroelectric power station, which was damaged by the landslide on October 12th, has been partially repaired and the preparations for operation have been started.

One of the 2 sand desalination (desander) ponds of the power plant has been repaired and water is sent directly to prepare for power generation.

The manager of the power station Purnagapal Ranjit told Kantipur that the power station will be partially repaired and operated within the month of Kartik. The landslide has completely damaged the power plant control house. Similarly, he said, there was damage to the sand settling pond (disenter) and tower number 46 of the transmission line.

Due to the damage to the road leading to the dam site, the Gongar-Lamabarg road will be opened in 1/2 day, he said. "All the materials for the repair of the power plant have arrived," he said He said. He said that electricity generation will be done by sending Tamakosi water directly through headwaters.

"The work of filling water at the dam site will start from today,   we will repair one of the two desanders and bring them into operation," he said, "water will not be sent completely from the dam site as in the past." According to him, it is estimated that 300 megawatts will be produced from Tamakosi in the month of Kartik. After that, as the water in the river will decrease, the production will also decrease, he said. He said that it will take at least one year to repair the Tamakosi Hydropower Station and bring it fully into operation.

'It will take another 8/9 months to completely repair the sand pond,' he said The control room, the sand settling pond (desander) and the canal (culvert) that conveys water from the dam to the desander have been damaged.

Due to the landslide that fell from above the place where the electricity operation control room, desander and culvert were, those structures were heavily damaged. The design discharge (flow of water) of Tamakoshi Hydropower Station is 66 cusec.

Last October, the flow of the Tamakoshi river reached 461 cusecs at the dam. According to the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) signed by Tamakosi with the authority, the power plant has to be shut down as soon as the water flow reaches 250 cusecs. Accordingly, the hydropower plant, which was closed on the 11th, has not yet been put into operation after being damaged.

Manager Ranjit said that the structure damaged by the landslide in Upper Tamakosi claimed insurance worth 1.80 billion.  He said that he has claimed insurance of one billion 800 million rupees for civil, electro mechanical and other equipments (electric and hydro equipment). Tamakosi has the capacity to generate electricity worth 4 crore rupees per day.

As it takes time to build Tamakosi, the challenge has been added to the Nepal Electricity Authority, which manages the winter load. In winter, the authority has been running Tamakosi as a backup to manage the load.