Last radial gate installed on NJHPP spillway

LAHORE: The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) said on Wednesday it has installed the last radial gate on the spillway of Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHPP) in Noseri, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The NJHPP authorities arranged a ceremony at the dam to celebrate the installation of all three radial gates on the dam spillway. Wapda Chairman Zafar Mahmood was the chief guest of the ceremony. NJHPP Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Zubair, Project Director Nayyar Ala-ud-Din and representatives of the contractor and the consultants were also present on the occasion.

Addressing the ceremony, the chairman congratulated the project authorities on achieving the milestone. He paid homage to their resolute commitment, devotion and hard work to implement this extremely difficult project.

He hopes the project would be completed in accordance with the revised schedule, as most of the critical targets have already been achieved, such as river crossing, connectivity of left and right headrace tunnels etc. During his visit to the project, Wapda chairman appreciated that both tunnel boring machines (TBMs) were excavating effectively.

Earlier, NJHPP CEO briefed the chairman about the progress. He said the construction work on all sites was heading at a good pace. He apprised the chairman that the dam and allied structures were about 80 per cent complete, while progress on the headrace tunnel was about 90 percent and the power house was 87 percent. He further said a sum of Rs249 billion has so far been spent on construction of the project.

As per revised schedule, the first generating unit of the project would be completed in July 2017, whereas the remaining three units would come on line by the end of 2017 in various phases.

Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Company is constructing a world class underground power generation facility. The project envisages 90 percent construction work under high mountainous overburden and only 10 percent above the surface. The project, on its completion, would contribute 5.15 billion units of low-cost and environment friendly electricity to the national grid.