--BY TC Correspondent

 

The reservoir of the Kulekhani I Hydropower Project has been filled. With the fill-up of this reservoir, considered as a ‘power back-up’ of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), load-shedding hours are not expected to increase this winter. 

 

Project Chief Ram Kumar Yadav informed TC that the reservoir’s water level was 1530.30 meter on last Sunday. “There is adequate amount of water in the reservoir,” he said. 

 

Though the reservoir’s maximum holding capacity is 1530 meter, reservoirs height has been increased by 30cm by piling up sand sacks along its brim, a project official said.  

 

Stating that additional water has been collected in the reservoir, the NEA said that it does not need to increase the load-shedding hours time this year.  Bhuwan Chhetri, Chief of Load Dispatch Center at NEA, confirmed the report. 

 

The project that generally operates from 5 pm to 10 pm every day, was started from 3 pm last Sunday due to the excessive rise of water level in the reservoir. 

 

Project’s Chief Yadav said that water is collected in the reservoir during day and night times and can be operated on requirement basis. He attributed the excessive rise of water level in the reservoir to adequate rainfall during the monsoon season. 

 

The reservoir water is collected from around three-dozen of small and big rivers of the water basin.  The project office has informed that the water level of the reservoir has not gone down below 1505 meter this year as the rainfall started from 

mid-May. 

 

Meanwhile, the construction work of  14 MW Kulekhani III hydropower project also has completed by 71 per cent. Indra Bir Ghimire, Deputy Manager of the project, said that if the project does not face any disruptions, it will start generating electricity within nine months. 

 

“We are working in full swing to complete the remaining 29 per cent of work within a nine-month period,” Ghimire said. 

 

The project is scheduled to complete by September 13, 2014. Ghimire informed that four kms of tunnel drilling and about 90 per cent reservoir construction has been completed. 

 

The project was started on April 27, 2008 with an aim to complete it by 2012.  Project officials blamed obstruction from the locals, delay by the contractors and NEA’s sluggishness as reasons for not meeting the construction deadline.