Light at tunnel8217;s end

8220;754 days left8221;, that is the signboard which greets everyone at various sites of the project. It was conceived in the early 8217;70s, conceptualised in the 8217;80s and work started on it in the 8217;90s. Now, 754 days on, the project is finally expected to start generating power.

The project tunnel begins at Nathpa in Kinnaur district and after a long-winding route ends at Jhakri in Shimla district,a distance of full 27 km, the longest hydro-power tunnel anywhere. The surge shaft at Jhakri too is the deepest water-conductor system for a hydro-electric project, going deep down to a little over 300 m.

8220;I am not exaggerating, but right now, this is perhaps the largest civil engineering project anywhere,8221; exults V.K. Sharma, GM in-charge at the site. Civil engineering works are expected to constitute almost half the project cost and the electro-mechanical part another 18 per cent.

There were two reasons why the project was built underground. One was the fragile Himalayan ecology. Any structure built above the ground could have led to degradation and landslides in a region which is already prone to them. Second was the security angle. As this is a crucial region, the authorities did not want to build a project which was exposed.

However, the construction of the project underground has been achieved at some cost, and after ruffling quite a few feathers. The excavation carried out underneath themountains to accommodate the plant has led to the digging up of at least 65 lakh cubic metres of earth, which has had to be dumped at sites nearby. With the Sutlej river on which the power plant will run nearby, care has to be taken to see that this huge mound does not make its way to the waters.

The blasting done to dig the tunnel has also led to development of cracks in houses in the neighbouring villages. The villagers are seeking compensation and leading them is Rakesh Singha, who feels the magnitude of 8220;human misery8221; has been considerable. 8220;The authorities wrongly presumed that since the project does not envisage any major submergence, the human angle would not be significant,8221; he says. Singha also claims that the excavation in the hilly terrain had resulted in the ground water seeping down to new levels causing changes in the grasslands. 8220;The project is a test case for similar ones in the future,8221; he says.

However, the special team from the National Institute of Rock Mechanics, Bangalore,called by the worried Nathpa Jhakri Joint Venture NJJV authorities to assess the damage due to the excavation said the cracks in houses were not on account of the blasting alone. It identified the 8220;influence zone8221; of the blasting but added that change in the topography, climatic alterations and the relatively young age of the Himalayan ranges could be factors behind the cracks.

The authorities are also facing the familiar problem of settling compensation demands. Rajesh Kanwar, SDM at Rampur Bushahr, says 43 of the 52 families rendered landless and homeless have been given jobs and Rs 75 lakh have been disbursed so far. 8220;We are seized of the issues and hope to resolve it at the State Level Relief and Rehabilitation Committee shortly,8221; he adds.

Besides this, the topography of the region has created its own hurdles. Sharma refers to the flash floods in August 1997 which had changed the course of the Sutlej 8220;causing considerable headaches8221;. The tunnelling, for instance, is still causing anxiety, withgeologists classifying some rocks 8220;very poor8221;. In fact, while driving up to the project site, one encounters signboards warning tourists of falling rocks.

All this has resulted in time and cost overruns. When the project was envisaged, it was estimated to cost Rs 160 crore. By 1988, when the foundation stone was laid, this had shot up to Rs 1,600 crore. Ten years later, the official estimates were revised further, to Rs 7,661 crore, a seven-fold increase. By the time it is completed, Rs 10,000 crore may have been spent on the project.

Time-wise too, the estimates have been constantly revised. The project was initially expected to be finished by 1997; the new date on all office notice boards is June 2001, that too tentative. The labour unrest and strikes, delay in tunnelling and a host of other factors may further push this date by another year.