NJHP reservoir’s first filling begins

LAHORE: The Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHP) on Tuesday entered its final stage as the dam structure across the Neelum River at Nauseri was completed and first filling commenced.

The completion of the 160-metre long and 60-metre high dam has enabled impounding of the reservoir with regulating closure of spillway gates. Water level would be raised at a rate of one to three meters per day.

Total storage of the dam is 8,207 acre feet up to design reservoir operating level of 1,015 meter above mean sea level. After successful filling of the reservoir, the water would be diverted into the water way system by the end of 2017.

The filling of the reservoir would take about a month, and would not affect the water requirements downstream of dam because one of the three gates of the spillway would remain open during the process of reservoir filling.

As much as 15 cusecs compensatory water would always be released downstream of dam to cater for the population needs and sustain aquatic ecosystem dependant on the Neelum River.

For environmental mitigation measures, a huge amount of Rs5.56 billion has been allocated in PC I of NJHP, including water supply schemes for Muzaffarabad, Chattar Kalas and Komi Kot area in addition to a number of other such schemes, all to be undertaken by the government of AJK.

The project was an engineering marvel with 90 percent of it being underground in the high mountain areas. The project consists of four units with installed capacity of 242.25MW each. The first unit of the project has been scheduled to go into operation by end February 2018 followed by the second unit in mid March and third and fourth units in April 2018.

On completion, the project would contribute about five billion units of electricity to the national grid annually. Annual revenue of the project has been estimated at Rs50 billion.