A consultant will be appointed to proceed with the construction of the 106 MW semi-reservoir hydropower project. For this, Jagdulla Hydropower Company Limited issued a letter of intent on Sunday and invited bids for consultants.

As per the notice, eligible companies can apply till 14th September (29th of Bhadra) at 12 noon. Consultants will be appointed for project contract management, supervision of construction work, bidding documents, etc. A consulting company should be appointed for technical support in large contracts.

Financial and technical proposals will be sought from selected companies from among the applicants. Similarly, the company has also issued a contract for the construction of a camp on the site.

This project will be built on the Jagdulla river in Dolpa’s Jagdulla and Mudkechula Rural Municipality. The project took the survey license for the study from the Electricity Development Department in 2074 and proceeded with the study. Initially, a license was taken for constructing a 307 MW reservoir project.

During the study, it was concluded that a semi-reservoir project of 106 MW could be constructed due to poor geography. After that, after four years, NEA Engineering Company has prepared a detailed study report. Preparatory work for the construction of the project is currently underway.

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of the project is being prepared at the final stage. Access road construction is underway. It is planned to build the access road in 6 months. After that, the construction is ready.

It is planned to proceed with the construction of the project under the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) model. Civil and Hydromechanical (Lot 2) contract will be awarded on EPC model. In such a model, the company itself has to do the work from design to purchase to construction when awarding the contract. The contract for two transmission lines and electromechanical is planned to be modeled in plan and design build.

The project has applied to the Electricity Authority for a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). The officials of the project are expecting to get approval soon. Preparations are being made for the financial closure of the project estimated at around 23 billion rupees. A loan of 16 billion rupees is required for the project. It is planned to inject Rs 7.1 billion from equity.

For this project, a 23 meter high dam will be built on the Jagdulla river and a reservoir with a capacity of 465970 cubic meters spread over an area of ??48.276 square meters will be constructed. About 615.32 gigawatt hours of energy will be produced annually from the project with a peaking capacity of 6 hours. It is planned to complete pre-preparation in 1 year and build in 4 more years.