The project office, in its response to a letter from a sub-committee of parliament´s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said there were various reasons for the unexpected delay and cost overrun.
PAC had formed the sub-committee headed by Rastriya Janashakti Party leader and Constituent Assembly (CA) member Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani on Feb. 1.
The project office claimed that frequent strikes, curfews, transport strikes, the people´s movement and local agitations forced the project to halt work at the site and this eventually caused delay in completion of the project.
The office said that frequent changes to the detailed design work even after awarding of the contract, a mandatory provision on appointing a German consultant, maintaining of European standards and another mandatory provision on acquiring donor agencies´ approval for carrying out any work also caused delay and cost overruns. Nepal has had to pay additional money to meet the deficit.
The delay in civil construction hampered other work also, said the project office.
Inadequate study and estimate on the part of consultants as well as underestimated tender quantities, failure to reach an agreement on construction schedules and to nominated sub-contractors were likewise responsible, it argued.
The project has stated that work at the site was partially suspended on September 22, 2003 and totally suspended on October 6, 2003. Likewise, there was a payment dispute on November 13, 2003. Similarly, work was suspended from August 2004 to January 2005. The project could start work round the clock only after June, 2005, according to a report submitted to the sub-committee.
However, members of the sub-committee were not convinced by the project office´s claims. "So the sub-committee summoned the head of Nepal Electricity Authority and the project chief on Sunday for further discussions," said PAC secretary Som Bahadur Thapa.
The run-of-river project with an installed capacity of 70 megawatts and average annual energy generation of 398 gigawatt hours, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Dec. 14, 2008, four years behind schedule.
Upon completion, the cost of the project stood at over Rs. 28 billion as against an origional estimate of Rs. 13.65 billion. Construction work started in June, 2001, with a target of completion by December 2004.
The project site is in Lamjung district, about 170 kilometers west of Kathmandu.
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