Water leaked from the tunnel in central Bhotekoshi

After a long effort, the tunnel burst and water leaked during the 'wet testing' for power generation. The question has been raised whether the construction of the project structure is of poor quality or a weakness in the design. Seven years have passed since the Electricity Authority started construction of the substation in Bahrbise municipality, but there is no possibility of its completion. Even after 9 months of blocking the transmission line by locals, no solution has been found.

Instead of generating electricity, new problems are being added to the project. There has been no reliable attempt to solve the problem of the project which is only paying interest of 40 to 50 lakhs per day i.e. about 150 crores per month. The time of power generation of the project, which is surrounded by problems, is becoming uncertain.

Even after a month and a half of work stopped due to water leakage in the tunnel, the Chinese contractor involved in the construction work has not prepared a proposal for the next work. The incident of the tunnel bursting and the water coming out of the ground has not only raised the question of the quality that has been raised in the past, but the debate has started as to whether there was a weakness in the design.

During the construction of the tunnel, an audio tape of a bribe offer of 2 crores was made public in November 2017 in collusion between the technical staff of the project and the contractor to reduce the quality of the work. The question has also been raised whether the old leadership of the project failed or the current management.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of the hydropower company, Ramgopal Sivakoti, said that after studying the issue of water coming out of the tunnel, a technical expert instructed the Chinese contractor company involved in the construction to prepare a proposal to move forward. "Wet testing is done to identify the problem," he said. Sivakoti said that after determining the problem and starting the work, the work will be completed in two-three months at most. According to the technicians of the

project, out of the 7 km tunnel, 4 to 5 km of the water has come out from the area near the local borderland. Locals say that there was a stone quarry at that location before the project was built. Water has come out in about 800 to 900 meters of the tunnel.

In the last week of December, water was sent to the tunnel in the third week of January after the structure of the dam was completed during wet testing. A few days later, water started leaking from the tunnel.

A technician says that he is not sure whether to put only a special type of plaster inside the tunnel or to make a slope (bed-lining of the lower level). Sources say that even though the current location of the tunnel can be detected from the location of the leak, negligence has been done. Sources claim that there is a weakness in the supervision of the tunnel due to the negligence of the consultant and the project technician.

An audio record was made public of Govind Poudel, the representative of Guanxing Hydro Electric Construction Bureau, the contractor company building the project, offering a bribe of up to 20 crores to the then CEO Manikumar Kafle if he did as he said. The local concern committee, in the presence of project chief Sunil Lama, released the audio at the project site in 077 November. Mainly during the construction of the project, the operator, consultant and contractor company are involved.