Construction work on the Tamakoshi Fifth and Rolwaling Diversion Projects has been halted for three months due to obstructions in the Gaurishankar Conservation Area.
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The construction of two domestically-funded hydropower projects under construction has been stalled for three months due to the government's own delay. The Supreme Court had ordered the Ministry of Forests and Environment to formulate procedures and construct hydropower projects in parks and conservation areas.
The Gaurishankar Conservation Area has obstructed the work of the Tamakoshi Fifth Project under the People's Hydropower Program, which is under construction, as the Ministry of Forests has not yet prepared the work.
Similarly, the conservation area has also stopped the work of the 20-megawatt rolling diversion under the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Center. The conservation area has stopped the work of the project since Asad 20 due to the lack of a work plan for land acquisition and tree felling orders for these projects in the conservation area.
The Supreme Court had struck down the amendment to the Parks Act 2081, which allowed the government to build infrastructure and development structures in parks and conservation areas. But the Supreme Court had recently issued a directive ruling allowing the government to build hydropower projects by making work plans since the law does not recognize the work plan.
The failure of the Ministry of Forests to prepare work plans on time has affected government-funded hydropower projects. The ministry has stopped the rolling walling work of Tamakoshi V and 20 MW of 99.8 MW from Ashad 20, saying that the full text has not been received even after making laws to move the project forward.
Although the work of Audit 1 and the power house of the Tamakoshi V project is underway, the work of the main audit tunnels 2, 3 and 4 has been completely stopped for three months. A project official said that the construction company Sino Hydro will claim compensation for that period after the work has been stopped for a long time.
Binod Bhandari, the Chief Executive Officer of Tamakoshi V, who has repeatedly informed the Ministry of Energy about the obstacles in the construction, said. "The conservation area has asked to stop the work because it has not received land tenure rights and permission to cut trees in the conservation area for three months," he said. "We have stopped the work for now as the procedure is in the process of being prepared. The procedure will probably be available by Tihar."
He said that the Ministry of Forests has already prepared the procedure and sent it to the Department of Parks. He said that the procedure has now reached the Ministry of Energy through the Ministry of Law. Due to lack of coordination among government agencies in the project, it is expected that the construction will be completed in 4 years, but it will take some time. This will increase the cost of the project, which is estimated to cost Rs 21.14 billion, an official said. Similarly, the project has stated that the time and cost will be evaluated according to the compensation claim made by Sino Hydro for the civil work.
The bid for the project was invited to be constructed under the Engineer Procurement Construction (EPC) model. The selected company is more responsible when constructing under this model. The company must take responsibility for the conditions from detailed design, procurement, construction to operation for a certain period of time.
Earlier, when Sino's financial proposal was canceled and postponed for a year, the cost had increased to Rs 21.14 billion. The project has a modality of 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt investment. Of which, a memorandum of understanding has been signed to invest Rs 13 billion in debt.
Similarly, the project will be built with the share investment of the general public and district residents. This project will use the same structure as the Upper Tamakoshi Project. Tamakoshi V is a cascade project of the Upper Tamakoshi Project. The main work of this project is the construction of an 8-kilometer tunnel and an underground power house.
Since the water from the tailrace of the Upper Tamakoshi Project will be used, there is no need to build a dam site, a water retention pond, or descender, and a herdbox in this project. The water from the tailrace will be directly introduced into the tunnel of Tamakoshi V. Since the Upper Tamakoshi is a semi-reservoir project, the same reservoir will be used, so Tamakoshi V will also be considered a semi-reservoir project.
Similarly, the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Station has taken forward the work of the roll-rolling project with a plan to divert water from the roll-rolling river to the dam site to increase the time of its 456 MW power generation capacity. Even as construction work is underway to generate an additional 20 megawatts of electricity at Rolwaling, the audit work underway at Riku has been halted for three months due to the lack of orders for the use of park land and tree felling.
