The main tunnel of Rahughat Hydroelectricity Project achieved a breakthrough on Tuesday. The project with a capacity to generate 40-megawatts of electricity is under construction at Raghuganga Rural Municipality of Myagdi district. It is a subsidiary project of Nepal Electricity Authority while Raghuganga Hydropower is its promoter.
The main tunnel is 6,270 meters long and starts from the dam at the base of Dagnam in Raghuganga Rural Municipality-4 and ends at Tilkenichaur in Raghuganga Rural Municipality-3, the project’s Managing Director Ganesh KC said.
The project said the breakthrough has been made dividing the tunnel into four audits.
Raghuganga Rural Municipality Chairman Bhawa Bahadur Bhandari and Managing Director KC made the breakthrough jointly by pushing a switch in the 2,332 meters long section of the tunnel linking the dam and the Audit No 2 at Agherikhola.
Eight hundred and seventy-five meters of the tunnel has been dug from Audit 1 and 1,458 meters from Audit 2. Lining works are in progress on the 3,836 meters long Audit 2 and 3 tunnels that had seen breakthroughs last March.
Bhandari, the rural municipality chair, expressed happiness over the completion of the tunnel construction work, saying construction of the tunnel is the main work of the project. He said that the rural municipality has facilitated and coordinated in the project’s works.
The project is being developed with a concessional loan of USD 67 million from the Indian EXIM (Export-Import) Bank in addition to the joint investment of NEA and the Government of Nepal.
The concerned authorities had signed the contract agreement for the construction of the project with civil contractors Jaiprakash Associates (JP) in 2074 BS.
