POKHARA, July 19: Parts of the hill supporting dam of the 144 MW Kaliandaki ‘A’ Hydropower Project in Syangja district have started eroding due to continuous floods in the river, according to officials of the project.

“Although the phenomenon had started about 5-6 years ago, the process intensified especially after the devastating earthquake of last year,” said Raj Bahadur Bista, civil engineer of the project. “About 300 meters land stretch located on the foot of the hill has been eroding continuously by to the river,” he added.

According to him, such erosion can have dangerous impact in the long-run despite not having immediate threat. He stressed the need for adoption of precautionary measures to mitigate the damage to the project.

After the hill started giving way, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has recently deployed some technicians in the site to conduct studies regarding it.

Chief of the project, Shreeram Raj Pandey, informed that they are conducting studies on the matter so as to minimize the potential dangers. “There is a high risk of massive landslides in near future if we fail to take action now. Hence, technicians of the NEA have been conducting studies to assess the actual situation since last month,” he said, adding that the studies would be concluded within next month.

Hari Raj Neupane, chief of the NEA’s production department, said they would be able to identify methods of repair only after the study gets concluded. “The land erosion poses high risk of burying the dam. Hence, some repair works have to be carried out to avert the danger. However, we won’t be able to say what measures should be taken until we read the report of the preliminary research," he added. 

 
• hill
 
• supporting
 
• kaligandaki
 
• dam
 
• gives
 
• way