China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC), the civil contractor for the Chameliya Hydroelectric Project, has completed treatment of 15 percent of the tunnel section that had squeezed.

CGGC, which started the work in October, has completed treatment of 34 meters out of 232 meters of the squeezed section, according to Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the owner of the 30MW project. “This is a great achievement by the civil contractor considering the shortage of labour in the month of October due to the festive season,” said Ajay Kumar Dahal, project chief. “The contractor has promised to deploy more labourers and expedite the work.”

According to CGGC’s revised work schedule, the civil works will be completed by September 2017. The contractor has demanded an additional 70 days to complete remaining works after the completion of civil works. “If everything goes as planned, the project will start generating electricity by December 2017,” said Dahal.

The construction of the project has been halted since May 2014 after the government denied to make an additional payment of Rs1.09 billion as demanded by the contractor for the variance occurred due to the squeezing of the tunnel.

The contractor, however, agreed to start the works after NEA agreed to release provisional payment of the disputed bill before the issue is resolved in order to maintain a regular cash flow for the project.

Once the dispute is settled, the provisional payment has to be refunded in case of excess payment and additional payment has to be made in case of deficit. According to Dahal, NEA is releasing Rs80-100 million within a week as provisional payment.