Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower project : Progress Review
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LAHORE: (APP) Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Chairman Zafar Mahmood Friday presided over a meeting to review construction work on the 969-MW Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHP).
WAPDA Member (Water) Muhammad Shoaib Iqbal, NJHP Chief Executive Officer Engineer Muhammad Zubair, WAPDA General Manager (Central Contract Cell) Nasir Hanif, NJHP Project Director Nayyar Alauddin and NJC (Consultants) Project Manager William B Dobbs and CGGC (Contractor) Project Manager Hu Quanguang attended the meeting.
Consultants and the contractor made a detailed presentation about the construction activities on the project, the problems being faced by them and their future plan of action for completion of the project.
The meeting reviewed construction work at all three sites of the project. The meeting observed that WAPDA chairman and the project team, led by Engineer Muhammad Zubair, were earnestly trying to adhere to the time lines to add electricity to the system as early as possible. But, in no case, safety of the project should be compromised, they said.
The chairman emphasised the contractor to invest more in deployment of machinery and human resources to meet the agreed time lines for completion of the project. He said that loan agreement amounting to US$576 million is likely to be finalised the next week.
The NJHP CEO briefed the meeting about the progress on the dam and de-sander, tunnel excavation, power house, transformers hall and the switch yard. He said that steel lining of the tunnels in the critical river-crossing area was progressing at a good pace, while concrete lining of the tunnels is also continuing. Overall progress on the project stands at about 83.5 perc cent, he added.
The first generating unit of the project is expected to be completed in July 2017, whereas the remaining three units will come on line one by one till the end of December 2017.
